' 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 
Letters  to  my  Grandson 


STEPHEN   COLERIDGE 

FROM  THE  PORTRAIT  BY  BERNARD  PARTRIDGE  IN  THE  POSSESSION  OF 
THE  MESS  OF  THE  SOUTH  WALES  CIRCUIT 


Letters  to  My  Grandson 

By 

The  Hon.  Stephen  Coleridge 


"The  chief  glory  of  every  people  arises  from  its  authors" 

Dr.  Johnson 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  and  London 

3be    imicherbocfeer    press 

1922 


Copyright,  1922 

by 
Stephen  Coleridge 

Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 

IF  you  have  read,  gentle  reader,  the  earlier 
series  of  Letters  to  my  Grandson  on  the  World 
about  Him,  you  are  to  understand  that  in  the 
interval  between  those  letters  and  these,  An- 
tony has  grown  to  be  a  boy  in  the  sixth  form 
of  his  public  school. 

It  has  not  been  any  longer  necessary  there- 
fore to  study  an  extreme  simplicity  of  diction 
in  these  letters. 

My  desire  has  been  to  lead  him  into  the  most 
glorious  company  in  the  world,  in  the  hope 
that,  having  early  made  friends  with  the  no- 
blest of  human  aristocracy,  he  will  never  after- 
wards admit  to  his  affection  and  intimacy 
anything  mean  or  vulgar. 

Many  young  people  who,  like  Antony,  are 
not  at  all  averse  from  the  study  of  English 
writers,  stand  aghast  at  the  vastness  of  the 


Preface 

field  before  them,  and  their  hearts  quail  before 
what  seems  so  gigantic  an  enterprise. 

In  these  letters  I  have  acted  as  pilot  for  a 
first  voyage  through  what  is  to  a  boy  an  un- 
charted sea,  after  which  I  hope  and  believe  he 
will  have  learned  happily  to  steer  for  himself 
among  the  islands  of  the  blest. 


S.  C. 


THE  FORD, 

CHOBHAM. 


VI 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

1.  ON  GOOD  AND  BAD  STYLE  IN  PROSE  .         .        i 

2.  ON  THE  GLORY  OF  THE  BIBLE  .         .        8 

3.  SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH     .         .         .         .17 

4.  ACT  OF  PARLIAMENT,  1532       ...      23 

5.  THE    JUDICIOUS    HOOKER    AND    SHAKE- 

SPEARE      ...... 

6.  LORD  CHIEF  JUSTICE  CREWE  . 

7.  SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  AND  MILTON 

8.  JEREMY  TAYLOR 

9.  EVELYN'S  DIARY 

10.  JOHN  BUNYAN 

11.  DR.  JOHNSON          ..... 

12.  EDMUND  BURKE     ..... 

13.  GIBBON          ...... 

14.  HENRY  GRATTAN  AND  MACAULAY     . 

15.  LORD  ERSKINE       ..... 

vii 


Contents 


PACK 


16.  ROBERT  HALL        .....      91 

17.  LORD  PLUNKET      .....     103 

1 8.  ROBERT  SOUTHEY 107 

19.  WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR         .         .         .112 

20.  LORD  BROUGHAM    .         .         .         .        .125 

21.  SIR  WILLIAM  NAPIER      .         .         .         .134 

22.  RICHARD  SHEIL      .....     140 

23.  THOMAS  CARLYLE  .....     146 

24.  HENRY  NELSON  COLERIDGE     .         .         .157 

25.  CARDINAL  NEWMAN        ....     163 

26.  LORD  MACAULAY  AGAIN  .         .         .171 

27.  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN        .         .         .         .180 

28.  JOHN  RUSKIN         .        .        .         .         .184 

29.  JAMES  ANTHONY  FROUDE         .         .         .     195 

30.  MATTHEW  ARNOLD         .        .        .         .201 

31.  SIR  WILLIAM  BUTLER      ....     206 

32.  LORD  MORLEY        .         .        .        .        .    212 

33.  HILAIRE  BELLOC 218 

34.  KING  GEORGE  THE  FIFTH       .        .        .    222 

35.  CONCLUSION 229 

viii 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 
Letters  to  my  Grandson 


LETTERS  TO  MY  GRANDSON 

i 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

The  letters  which  I  wrote  "On  the  world 
about  you"  having  shown  you  that  through- 
out all  the  universe,  from  the  blazing  orbs  in 
infinite  space  to  the  tiny  muscles  of  an  insect's 
wing,  perfect  design  is  everywhere  manifest, 
I  hope  and  trust  that  you  will  never  believe 
that  so  magnificent  a  process  and  order  can  be 
without  a  Mind  of  which  it  is  the  visible 
expression. 

The  chief  object  of  those  letters  was  to 
endorse  your  natural  feeling  of  reverence  for 
the  Great  First  Cause  of  all  things,  with  the 
testimony  of  your  reason;  and  to  save  you 
from  ever  allowing  knowledge  of  how  the  sap 
rises  in  its  stalk  to  lessen  your  wonder  at  and 
admiration  of  the  loveliness  of  a  flower. 

i 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

I  am  now  going  to  write  to  you  about  the 
literature  of  England  and  show  you,  if  I  can, 
the  immense  gulf  that  divides  distinguished 
writing  and  speech  from  vulgar  writing  and 
speech. 

There  is  nothing  so  vulgar  as  an  ignorant 
use  of  your  own  language. 

Every  Englishman  should  show  that  he 
respects  and  honours  the  glorious  language  of 
his  country,  and  will  not  willingly  degrade  it 
with  his  own  pen  or  tongue. 

"We  have  long  preserved  our  constitution," 
said  Dr.  Johnson ; ' '  let  us  make  some  struggles 
for  our  language." 

There  is  no  need  to  be  priggish  or  fantastic 
in  our  choice  of  words  or  phrases. 

Simple  old  words  are  just  as  good  as  any 
that  can  be  selected,  if  you  use  them  in  their 
proper  sense  and  place. 

By  reading  good  prose  constantly  your  ear 
will  come  to  know  the  harmony  of  language, 
and  you  will  find  that  your  taste  will  un- 
erringly tell  you  what  is  good  and  what  is 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

bad  in  style,  without  your  being  able  to  explain 
even  to  yourself  the  precise  quality  that  dis- 
tinguishes the  good  from  the  bad. 

Any  Englishman  with  a  love  of  his  country 
and  a  reverence  for  its  language  can  say 
things  in  a  few  words  that  will  find  their  way 
straight  into  our  hearts,  Antony,  and  make  us 
all  better  men.  I  will  tell  you  a  few  of  such 
simple  sayings  that  are  better  than  any  more 
laboured  writings. 

On  the  3Oth  of  June,  1921,  in  the  Times 
In  Memoriam  column  there  was  an  entry: — 
"To  the  undying  memory  of  officers,  non- 
commissioned officers  and  men  of  the  9th  and 
loth  battalions  of  the  K.O.Y.L.I. '  who  were 
killed  in  the  attack  on  Fricourt  in  the  first 
battle  of  the  Somme  " ;  and  below  it  there  were 
placed  these  splendid  words : — 

"Gentlemen,  when  the  barrage  lifts." 

In  February  of  1913  news  reached  England 
of  the  death,  after  reaching  the  South  Pole,  of 

1  King's  Own  Yorkshire  Light  Infantry. 

3 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

four  explorers,  Captain  Scott,  their  leader, 
among  them. 

Shortly  before  the  end,  Captain  Gates,  a  man 
of  fortune  who  joined  the  expedition  from  pure 
love  of  adventure,  knowing  that  his  helpless- 
ness with  frozen  feet  was  retarding  the  desper- 
ate march  of  the  others  towards  their  ship, 
rose  up  and  stumbled  out  of  the  tent  into  a 
raging  blizzard,  saying,  "I  dare  say  I  shall  be 
away  some  time." 

This  was  greatly  said.  His  body  was  never 
found;  but  the  rescue  party  who  afterwards 
discovered  the  tent  with  the  others  dead  in  it, 
put  up  a  cairn  in  the  desolate  waste  of  snow 
with  this  inscription : — 

"Hereabouts  died  a  very  gallant  gentleman, 
Captain  L.  E.  G.  Gates,  Inniskilling  Dragoons, 
who,  on  their  return  from  the  Pole  in  March,  1912, 
willingly  walked  to  his  death  in  a  blizzard  to  try 
and  save  his  comrades  beset  with  hardship.  " 

All  this  was  done,  said,  and  written,  very 
nobly  by  all  concerned. 

4 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

In  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  their  lies  a  recum- 
bent effigy  of  General  Gordon,  who  gave  his 
life  for  the  honour  of  England  at  Khartoum, 
and  upon  it  are  engraven  these  words: — 

"He  gave  his  strength  to  the  weak,  his  sub- 
stance to  the  poor,  his  sympathy  to  the  suffering, 
his  heart  to  God. " 

Even  the  concentrated  terseness  of  Latin 
cannot  surpass  these  examples  of  the  power  of 
the  simplest  and  shortest  English  sentences  to 
penetrate  to  the  heart. 

English  can  be  used,  by  those  who  master  it 
as  an  organ  of  expression,  to  convey  deep 
emotion  under  perfect  control,  than  which 
nothing  is  more  moving,  nothing  better  calcu- 
lated to  refine  the  mind,  nothing  more  certain 
to  elevate  the  character. 

Whenever  a  man  has  something  fine  to 
communicate  to  his  fellow-men  he  has  but  to 
use  English  without  affectation,  honestly  and 
simply,  and  he  is  in  possession  of  the  most  splen- 
did vehicle  of  human  thought  in  the  world. 

5 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

All  the  truly  great  writers  of  English  speak 
with  simplicity  from  their  hearts,  they  all 
evince  a  spirit  of  unaffected  reverence,  they 
all  teach  us  to  look  up  and  not  down,  and  by 
the  nobility  of  their  works  which  have  pene- 
trated into  every  home  where  letters  are 
cultivated,  they  have  done  an  incalculable 
service  in  forming  and  sustaining  the  high 
character  of  our  race. 

Clever  flippant  writers  may  do  a  trifling 
service  here  and  there  by  ridiculing  the  pomp- 
ous and  deflating  the  prigs,  but  there  is  no 
permanence  in  such  work,  unless — which  is 
seldom  the  case — it  is  totally  devoid  of  per- 
sonal vanity. 

Very  little  such  service  is  rendered  when  it 
emanates  from  a  writer  who  announces  himself 
as  equal  if  not  superior  to  Shakespeare,  and 
embellishes  his  lucubrations  with  parodies  of 
the  creeds. 

"A  Gentleman  with  a  Duster,"  has  in  his 
"Glass  of  Fashion"  shown  us  that  the  Society 
depicted  in  the  books  of  Colonel  Repington 

6 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

and  Mrs.  Asquith  is  not  the  true  and  great 
Society  that  sustains  England  in  its  noble 
station  among  civilised  peoples,  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  neither  do  these  books  in  the 
faintest  degree  represent  the  true  and  living 
literature  of  the  times.  They  will  pass  away 
and  be  forgotten  as  utterly  as  are  the  fashion 
plates  and  missing-word  competitions  of  ten 
years  ago. 

Therefore,  Antony,  be  sure  that  the  famous 
and  living  literature  of  England,  that  has 
survived  all  the  shocks  of  time  and  changes 
of  modern  life,  is  the  best  and  properest  study 
for  a  man  to  fit  him  for  life,  to  refine  his  taste, 
to  aggravate  his  wisdom,  and  consolidate  his 
character. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  alluded,  in  my  first  letter  to  you  about 
English  literature,  to  the  necessity  of  your 
learning  from  the  beginning  the  wide  distinc- 
tion between  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad 
style. 

I  do  not  know  a  better  instance  of  a  display 
of  the  difference  between  what  is  fine  style  and 
what  is  not,  than  may  be  made  by  putting 
side  by  side  almost  any  sentence  from  the  old 
authorised  translation  of  the  Bible  and  the 
same  sentence  from  The  Bible  in  Modern 
Speech. 

I  will  just  put  two  quotations  side  by  side : — 

"Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they 
grow;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin:    and 
yet  I  say  unto  you,  That  even  Solomon  in  all  his 
glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these. " 
8 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

' '  Learn  a  lesson  from  the  wild  lilies.  Watch 
their  growth.  They  neither  toil  nor  spin,  and 
yet  I  tell  you  that  not  even  Solomon  in  all  his 
magnificence  could  array  himself  like  one  of 
these. " 

Here  you  can  feel  the  perfect  harmony  and 
balance  of  the  old  version  and  the  miserable 
commonplaceness  of  the  effort  of  these  mis- 
guided modern  men. 

Again : — 

' '  Repent  ye :  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at 
hand. " 

This  is  mauled  into: — 

"Repent,  he  said,  for  the  kingdom  of  the 
heavens  is  now  close  at  hand. " 

These  examples  are  perfectly  suited  to 
illustrate  the  immense  difference  that  sepa- 
rates what  is  noble  and  fine  in  style  and  what 
is  poor  and  third  rate. 

If  you  recite  the  old  version  aloud  you  cannot 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

escape  the  harmony  and  balance  of  the  sen- 
tences, and  nothing  dignified  or  distinguished 
can  be  made  of  the  wretched  paraphrases  of 
the  two  desecrators  of  the  splendid  old  text. 

And,  Antony,  I  would  have  you  know  that 
I,  who  have  spent  a  long  life  in  precious  libra- 
ries, loving  fine  literature  with  all  my  heart, 
have  long  ago  reverenced  the  old  version  of 
the  Bible  as  the  granite  corner-stone  upon 
which  has  been  built  all  the  noblest  English  in 
the  world.     No  narrative  in  literature  has  yet 
surpassed  in  majesty,  simplicity,  and  passion 
the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  begin- 
ning at  the  thirty-seventh  and  ending  with  the 
forty -fifth  chapter  of  Genesis.     There  is  surely 
nothing  more  moving  and  lovely  in  all  the 
books  in  the  British  Museum  than  the  picture 
of  Joseph  when  he  sees  his  little  brother  among 
his  brethren : — 

"And  he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  saw  his  brother 

Benjamin,  his  mother's  son,  and  said,  Is  this 

your  younger  brother,  of  whom  ye  spake  to  me  ? 

And  he  said,  God  be  gracious  unto  thee,  my  son. 

10 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"And  Joseph  made  haste;  for  his  bowels  did 
yearn  upon  his  brother :  and  he  sought  where  to 
weep ;  and  he  entered  into  his  chamber,  and  wept 
there." 

The  whole  of  the  forty-fifth  chapter  is  touch- 
ing and  beautiful  beyond  all  criticism,  tran- 
scending all  art.  To  read  it  is  to  believe 
every  word  of  it  to  be  true,  and  to  recognise 
the  sublimity  of  such  a  relation. 

No  narrative  of  the  great  Greek  writers 
reaches  the  heart  so  directly  and  poignantly  as 
does  this  astonishing  story.  It  moves  swiftly 
and  surely  along  from  incident  to  incident  till 
Joseph's  loving  soul  can  contain  itself  no 
more: — 

"Then  Joseph  could  not  refrain  himself  be- 
fore all  of  them  that  stood  by  him;  and  he 
cried,  Cause  every  man  to  go  out  from  me. 

"And  there  stood  no  man  with  him,  while 
Joseph  made  himself  known  unto  his  brethren. 

"And  he  wept  aloud:  and  the  Egyptians  and 
the  house  of  Pharaoh  heard. 
II 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

"And  Joseph  said  unto  his  brethren,  I  am 
Joseph ;  doth  my  father  yet  live  ? 

"And  he  fell  upon  his  brother  Benjamin's 
neck,  and  wept;  and  Benjamin  wept  upon  his 
neck.  Moreover  he  kissed  all  his  brethren  and 
wept  upon  them. 

"And  after  that  his  brethren  talked  with 
him." 

And  this  wonderful  chapter  ends  thus: — 

"And  they  went  up  out  of  Egypt,  and  came 
unto  the  land  of  Canaan  unto  Jacob  their  father, 
and  told  him,  saying,  Joseph  is  yet  alive,  and  is 
governor  over  all  the  land  of  Egypt. 

"And  Jacob's  heart  fainted,  for  he  believed 
them  not. 

"And  they  told  him  all  the  words  of  Joseph, 
which  he  had  said  unto  them :  and  when  he  saw 
the  wagons  which  Joseph  had  sent  to  carry  him, 
the  spirit  of  Jacob  their  father  revived : 

"And  Israel  said,  ft  is  enough;  Joseph  my 
son  is  yet  alive:  I  will  go  and  see  him  before  I 
die." 

12 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

If  you  read  the  story  of  Joseph  through  from 
start  to  finish,  you  will  see  that  it  is  a  perfect 
narrative  of  the  life  of  a  man  without  fault, 
who  suffered  much  but  without  resentment, 
was  great  of  heart  in  evil  days,  and,  when 
Fortune  placed  him  in  a  position  of  glory  and 
greatness,  showed  a  stainless  magnanimity  and 
a  brotherly  love  that  nothing  could  abate.  It 
is  the  first  and  most  perfect  story  in  literature 
of  the  nobility  of  man's  soul,  and  as  such  it 
must  remain  a  treasured  and  priceless  posses- 
sion to  the  world's  end. 

In  the  short  Book  of  Ruth  there  lies  em- 
balmed in  the  finest  English  a  very  tender  love 
story,  set  in  all  the  sweet  surroundings  of  the 
ripening  corn,  the  gathered  harvest,  and  the 
humble  gleaners.  Nothing  can  be  more  de- 
lightful than  the  direction  of  Boaz,  the  great 
land-owner,  to  his  men,  after  he  had  espied 
Ruth  in  her  beauty  gleaning  in  his  fields : — 

"And  when  she  was  risen  up  to  glean,  Boaz 
commanded  his  young  men,  saying,  Let  her  glean 
even  among  the  sheaves,  and  reproach  her  not : 
13 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

"And  let  fall  also  some  of  the  handfuls  on 
purpose  for  her,  and  leave  them,  that  she  may 
glean  them,  and  rebuke  her  not. " 

This  little  gem  in  the  books  of  the  Bible 
inspired  Hood  to  write  one  of  his  most  perfect 
lyrics : — 

"She  stood  breast  high  amid  the  corn 
Clasped  by  the  golden  light  of  morn, 
Like  the  sweetheart  of  the  sun, 
Who  many  a  glowing  kiss  had  won. 

Thus  she  stood  amid  the  stocks, 
Praising  God  with  sweetest  looks. 

Sure,  I  said,  Heaven  did  not  mean 
Where  I  reap  thou  should'st  but  glean; 
Lay  thy  sheaf  adown  and  come, 
Share  my  harvest  and  my  home." 

That  the  Bible  was  translated  into  English 
at  the  time  when  the  language  was  spoken 
and  written  in  its  most  noble  form,  by  men 
whose  style  has  never  been  surpassed  in 

14 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

strength  combined  with  simplicity,  has  been  a 
priceless  blessing  to  the  English-speaking  race. 
The  land  of  its  birth,  once  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey,  has  been  for  long  centuries  a  place 
of  barren  rocks  and  arid  deserts:  Persians 
and  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Turks  have 
successively  swept  over  it;  the  descendants 
of  those  who  at  different  times  produced  its 
different  books  are  scattered  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth ;  but  the  English  translation  has  for  long 
years  been  the  head  corner-stone  in  homes 
innumerable  as  the  sands  of  the  sea  in  number. 

No  upheavals  of  the  earth,  no  fire,  pesti- 
lence, famine,  or  slaughter,  can  ever  now  blot 
it  out  from  the  ken  of  men. 

When  all  else  is  lost  we  may  be  sure  that 
the  old  English  version  of  the  Bible  will 
survive.  ' '  Heaven  and  earth  shall  pass  away, 
but  my  words  shall  not  pass  away." 

Do  not  think  it  enough  therefore,  Antony,  to 
hear  it  read  badly  and  without  intelligence  or 
emotion,  in  little  detached  snippets,  in  church 
once  a  week. 

15 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

Read  it  for  yourself,  and  learn  to  rejoice  in 
the  perfect  balance,  harmony,  and  strength 
of  its  noble  style. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


16 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  could  write  you  many  letters  like  my  last 
one  about  the  Bible,  and  perhaps  some  day  I 
will  go  back  to  that  wonderful  Book  and  write 
you  some  more  letters  about  it ;  but  now  I  will 
go  on  and  tell  you  about  some  of  the  great 
writers  of  English  prose  that  came  after  the 
translation  of  the  Bible. 

Those  translators  were  the  great  founders 
of  the  English  language,  which  is  probably  on 
the  whole  the  most  glorious  organ  of  human 
expression  that  the  world  has  yet  known. 

It  blends  the  classic  purity  of  Greek  and  the 
stately  severity  of  Latin  with  the  sanguine 
passions  and  noble  emotions  of  our  race. 

A  whole  life  devoted  to  its  study  will  not 
make  you  or  me  perfectly  familiar  with  all  the 
splendid  passages  that  have  been  spoken  and 

17 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

written  in  it.  But  I  shall  show  in  my  letters, 
at  least  some  of  the  glorious  utterances  scat- 
tered around  me  here  in  my  library,  so  that 
you  may  recognise,  as  you  ought,  the  pomp 
and  majesty  of  the  speech  of  England. 

One  of  the  great  qualities  that  was  always 
present  in  the  writings  of  Englishmen  from 
the  time  of  Elizabeth  down  to  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  was  its  restraint. 

Those  men  never  became  hysterical  or  lost 
their  perfect  self-control. 

The  deeper  the  emotion  of  the  writer  the 
more  manifest  became  the  noble  mastery  of 
himself. 

When  Sir  Walter  Ralegh,  that  glorious  son 
of  Devon,  from  which  county  you  and  I, 
Antony,  are  proud  to  have  sprung,  lay  in  the 
Tower  of  London  awaiting  his  cowardly  and 
shameful  execution  the  next  day  at  the  hands 
of  that  miserable  James  I.,  writing  to  his 
beloved  wife,  with  a  piece  of  coal,  because  they 
even  denied  him  pen  and  ink,  face  to  face  with 
death,  he  yet  observed  a  calm  and  noble 

18 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

language  that  is  truly  magnifical — to  use  the 
old  Bible  word. 

"For  the  rest,"  he  wrote,  "when  you  have 
travailed  and  wearied  your  thoughts  on  all  sorts 
of  worldly  cogitations,  you  shall  sit  down  by 
sorrow  in  the  end.  Teach  your  son  also  to 
serve  and  fear  God  while  he  is  young,  that  the 
fear  of  God  may  grow  up  in  him.  Then  will 
God  be  a  Husband  unto  you  and  a  Father  unto 
him;  a  Husband  and  a  Father  which  can  never 
be  taken  from  you. 

"I  cannot  write  much.  God  knows  how 
hardly  I  stole  this  time  when  all  sleep ;  and  it  is 
time  to  separate  my  thoughts  from  the  world. 

' '  Beg  my  dead  body,  which  living  was  denied 
you;  and  either  lay  it  at  Sherburne,  if  the  land 
continue,  or  in  Exeter  Church  by  my  father  and 
mother.  I  can  write  no  more.  Time  and 
Death  call  me  away. 

"The  Everlasting,  Infinite,  Powerful  and 
Inscrutable  God,  that  Almighty  God  that  is 
goodness  itself,  mercy  itself,  the  true  life  and 
light,  keep  you  and  yours,  and  have  mercy  on 
me  and  teach  me  to  forgive  my  persecutors  and 
19 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

false  accusers,  and  send  us  to  meet  in  His  Glo- 
rious Kingdom.  My  true  wife,  farewell.  Bless 
my  poor  boy,  pray  for  me.  My  true  God  hold 
you  both  in  His  Arms. 

"Written  with  the  dying  hand  of,  sometime 
thy  husband,  but  now  alas!  overthrown,  yours 
that  was,  but  now  not  my  own. 

"WALTER  RALEGH." 

Sir  Walter  Ralegh,  long  before  he  came  to 
his  untimely  end,  had  written  in  his  great 
History  of  the  World  a  wonderful  passage 
about  death;  it  is  justly  celebrated,  and  is 
familiar  to  all  men  of  letters  throughout  the 
world,  so  I  will  quote  a  portion  of  it  for  you: — 

"The  Kings  and  Princes  of  the  world  have 

always  laid  before  them  the  actions,  but  not  the 

ends,  of  those  great  ones  which  preceded  them. 

They  are  always  transported  with  the  glory  of 

the  one,  but  they  never  mind  the  misery  of  the 

other,  till  they  find  the  experience  in  themselves. 

"They  neglect  the  advice  of  God,  while  they 

enjoy  life,  or  the  hope  of  it ;  but  they  follow  the 

20 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

counsel  of  Death  upon  the  first  approach.  It  is 
he  that  puts  into  man  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
world,  without  speaking  a  word;  which  God, 
with  all  the  Words  of  His  Law,  promises  and 
threats,  doth  not  infuse. 

"Death  which  hateth  and  destroyeth  man  is 
believed;  God  which  hath  made  him  and  loves 
him  is  always  deferred.  It  is,  therefore,  Death 
alone  that  can  suddenly  make  man  to  know 
himself.  He  tells  the  proud  and  insolent  that 
they  are  but  abjects,  and  humbles  them  at  the 
instant ;  makes  them  cry,  complain  and  repent ; 
yea,  even  to  hate  their  fore-passed  happiness. 

"He  takes  account  of  the  rich,  and  proves 
him  a  beggar ;  a  naked  beggar  which  hath  inter- 
est in  nothing  but  in  the  gravel  that  fills  his 
mouth.  He  holds  a  glass  before  the  eyes  of  the 
most  beautiful  and  makes  them  see  therein  their 
deformity  and  rottenness,  and  they  acknowledge 
it. 

"O  eloquent,  just  and  mighty  Death!  whom 
none  could  advise,  thou  hast  persuaded;  what 
none  have  dared  thou  hast  done;  and  whom  all 
the  world  have  flattered,  thou  only  hast  cast  out 

21 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

of  the  world  and  despised;  thou  hast  drawn 
together  all  the  far-stretched  greatness,  all  the 
pride,  cruelty  and  ambition  of  man,  and  covered 
it  all  over  with  these  two  narrow  words — me 
JACET.  " 

Sir  Walter  Ralegh  was  born  only  a  few  miles 
down  below  Ottery  St.  Mary,  in  the  same 
beautiful  valley  from  which  you  and  I,  Antony, 
and  the  poet  have  come.  The  peal  of  bells 
in  the  old  church  tower  at  Otterton  was  given 
by  him  to  the  parish;  and  when  "the  lin  Ian 
lone  of  evening  bells"  floats  across  between 
the  hills  that  guard  the  river  Otter,  it  should 
fall  upon  our  ears  as  an  echo  of  the  melody 
that  strikes  upon  our  hearts  in  Ralegh's  words. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


22 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

In  looking  through  some  very  old  Acts  of 
Parliament  not  long  ago  I  was  rather  sur- 
prised to  find  that  in  those  old  times  our 
forefathers  drew  up  their  statutes  in  very 
stately  English. 

In  our  own  times  Acts  of  Parliament  fre- 
quently violate  the  simplest  rules  of  grammar, 
and  are  sometimes  so  unintelligible  as  to  need 
the  labours  of  learned  judges  to  find  out  what 
they  mean ! 

But  it  seems  that  in  the  great  days  of  Henry 
VIII.  and  Elizabeth  Acts  of  Parliament  were 
often  written  in  resounding  periods  of  solemn 
splendour  of  which  the  meaning  is  perfectly 
clear. 

In  the  twenty-fourth  year  of  the  great 
Henry,  the  Act  denying  and  forbidding  any 

23 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

jurisdiction  of  the  Pope  of  Rome  in  England 
was  passed. 

This  Act,  depriving  the  Pope  of  all  power  in 
England,  marked  a  turning-point  in  history. 

It  is  headed  with  these  words: — 

THE  PRE-EMINENCE,  POWER,  AND  AUTHORITY 
OF  THE  KING  OF  ENGLAND.     1532. 

"Where  by  divers  sundry  old  authentic  his- 
tories and  chronicles  it  is  manifestly  declared 
and  expressed  that  this  realm  of  England  is  an 
Empire,  and  so  hath  been  accepted  in  the  world, 
governed  by  one  supreme  head  and  King  having 
the  dignity  and  royal  estate  of  the  imperial 
crown  of  the  same,  unto  whom  a  body  politic 
compact  of  all  sorts  and  degrees  of  people,  di- 
vided in  terms  and  by  names  of  spiritualty  and 
temporalty  being  bounden  and  owen  to  bear 
next  to  God  a  natural  and  humble  obedience; 
he  being  also  institute  and  furnished  by  the 
goodness  and  sufferance  of  Almighty  God  with 
plenary  whole  and  entire  power  pre-eminence 
authority  prerogative  and  jurisdiction  to  render 
and  yield  justice  and  final  determination  to  all 
24 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

manner  of  folk  residents  or  subjects  within  this 
his  realm,  in  all  causes  matters  debates  conten- 
tions happening  to  occur  insurge  or  begin  within 
the  limits  thereof  without  restraint  or  provoca- 
tion to  any  foreign  princes  or  potentates  of  the 
world  ...  all  causes  testamentary,  causes  of 
matrimony  and  divorces,  rights  of  tithes,  obla- 
tions and  obventions  .  .  .  shall  be  from  hence- 
forth heard  examined  licenced  clearly  finally  and 
definitely  adjudged  and  determined  within  the 
King's  jurisdiction  and  authority  and  not  else- 
where." 

The  words  "Empire"  and  "Imperial"  are 
in  the  present  day  degraded  from  their  ancient 
high  estate  by  an  appropriation  of  them  to 
advertise  soap  or  cigarettes  or  what  not;  and 
we  even  are  confronted  with  the  "Imperial" 
Cancer  Research  Fund,  the  money  of  which 
has  been  employed  in  artificially  inflicting 
cancer  on  hundreds  of  thousands  of  living 
animals — a  performance  utterly  repugnant  to 
a  great  many  of  the  inhabitants  in  the 
"Empire"! 

25 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

But  people  indifferent  to  the  dictates  of 
mercy  are  not  likely  to  have  much  reverence 
for  words,  however  august. 

Henry  VIII.,  we  may  be  sure,  would  never 
have  allowed  these  solemn  words  to  be  used 
by  people  with  something  to  sell,  or  by  scienti- 
fic disease-mongers. 

They  were  great  people  who  could  draw  up 
their  statutes  in  splendid  passages  of  sus- 
tained nobility. 

Let  us,  Antony,  salute  them  across  the 
centuries. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


26 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

One  of  the  great  creators  of  English  prose 
who  lived  at  the  same  time  as  Ralegh  and 
Shakespeare  was  Richard  Hooker,  who  is 
generally  known  as  "the  Judicious  Hooker." 

He  was  born  in  Devon,  two  years  after 
Ralegh,  in  1554. 

He  must  very  early  in  life  have  made  his 
mark  as  a  man  of  learning  and  piety,  for  when 
he  was  only  thirty-one  he  was  made  Master  of 
the  Temple.  The  controversies  in  which  he 
there  found  himself  involved  induced  him  to 
retire  when  he  was  only  thirty-seven  into  the 
country,  for  the  purpose  of  writing  his  famous 
books,  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity. 

It  is  the  first  great  book  on  the  English 
Church,  and  it  is  full  of  magnificent  prose.  It 
was  divided  into  eight  parts;  and  in  the  first 

27 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

one,  before  he  had  got  far  into  it,  he  penned  the 
exclamatory  description  of  law  which  will  live 
as  long  as  the  language: — 

"Her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God,  her  voice  the 
harmony  of  the  world ;  all  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  do  her  homage,  the  very  least  as  feeling 
her  care,  the  greatest  as  not  exempted  from  her 
power. " 

And  in  the  same  first  part  will  be  found  a 
passage  on  the  Deity  which  portrays  faithfully 
for  us  the  humble  wisdom  of  both  the  man 
and  his  age : — 

"Dangerous  it  were  for  the  feeble  brain  of 
man  to  wade  far  into  the  doings  of  the  Most 
High ;  whom  although  to  know  be  life,  and  joy  to 
make  mention  of  His  name;  yet  our  soundest 
knowledge  is  to  know  that  we  know  Him  not  as 
indeed  He  is,  neither  can  know  Him;  and  our 
safest  eloquence  concerning  Him  is  our  silence, 
when  we  confess  without  confession  that  His 
glory  is  inexplicable,  His  greatness  above  our 
28 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

capacity  to  reach.  He  is  above  and  we  upon 
earth;  therefore  it  behoveth  our  words  to  be 
wary  and  few." 

Shakespeare  was  born  ten  years  later  than 
Hooker,  in  1564,  and  his  share  in  founding 
English  prose  as  we  know  it  is,  of  course,  not 
comparable  with  that  of  Hooker,  for  of  Shake- 
speare's prose  there  remains  for  us  but  little. 
Whenever  he  rose  to  eloquence  he  clothed  him- 
self in  verse  as  with  an  inevitable  attribute, 
but  on  the  rare  occasions  when  he  conde- 
scended to  step  down  from  the  great  line  to 
' '  the  other  harmony  of  prose  "  he  is  as  splendid 
as  in  all  else.  In  Hamlet  we  have  this  sudden 
passage : — 

"I  have  of  late,  (but  wherefore  I  know  not), 
lost  all  my  mirth,  foregone  all  custom  of  exer- 
cises; and  indeed  it  goes  so  heavily  with  my 
disposition,  that  this  goodly  frame,  the  earth, 
seems  to  me  a  sterile  promontory;  this  most 
excellent  canopy  the  air,  look  you,  this  brave 
o'erhanging  firmament,  this  majestical  roof 
29 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

fretted  with  golden  fire,  why,  it  appears  no  other 
thing  to  me,  than  a  foul  and  pestilent  congre- 
gation of  vapours. 

"What  a  piece  of  work  is  man!  How  noble 
in  reason !  how  infinite  in  faculty !  in  form  and 
moving,  how  express  and  admirable !  in  action, 
how  like  an  angel !  in  apprehension,  how  like  a 
god!  the  beauty  of  the  world!  the  paragon  of 
animals!  And  yet  to  me  what  is  this  quintes- 
sence of  dust?" 

And  the  most  beautiful  letter  in  the  world  is 
that  written  by  Antonio  to  Bassanio  in  The 
Merchant  of  Venice.  When  it  is  remembered 
that  it  was  out  of  his  friendship  for  Bassanio 
that  Antonio  entered  into  his  bond  with  Shy- 
lock,  the  supreme  exquisiteness  of  the  few 
words  from  friend  to  friend  render  this  letter 
unsurpassable : — 

"Sweet  Bassanio,  my  ships  have  all  mis- 
carried, my  creditors  grow  cruel,  my  estate  is 
very  low,  my  bond  to  the  Jew  is  forfeit,  and 
since,  in  paying  it,  it  is  impossible  I  should  live, 
all  debts  are  cleared  between  you  and  me  if  I 
30 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

might  see  you  at  my  death;  notwithstanding, 
use  your  pleasure ;  if  your  love  do  not  persuade 
you  to  come,  let  not  my  letter. " 

Well  did  Shakespeare  know  that  such  a 
letter  must  make  an  instant  appeal  to  the 
sweet  heart  of  Portia:  "O  love!"  she  cries, 
"despatch  all  business,  and  be  gone!" 

All  great  poets  are  masters  of  a  splendid 
prose,  and  had  Shakespeare  written  some 
notable  work  of  prose  we  may  be  sure  it  would 
even  have  surpassed  the  noble  utterances  of 
all  his  wonderful  contemporaries. 

It  has  been  said  that  no  language  in  the 
world  has  yet  ever  lasted  in  its  integrity  for 
over  a  thousand  years.  Perhaps  printing 
may  confer  a  greater  stability  on  present 
languages ;  but  whenever  English  is  displaced, 
the  sun  of  the  most  glorious  of  all  days  will 
have  set. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  do  not  think  that  men  of  letters  often 
search  through  the  old  law  reports  for  speci- 
mens of  fine  prose,  but  I  believe  that  here  and 
there,  in  that  generally  barren  field,  a  nugget 
of  pure  gold  may  be  discovered  by  an  industri- 
ous student. 

Much  noble  prose  delivered  from  the  bench 
down  the  centuries  has  been  lost  for  ever,  for 
the  judges  of  England  have  often  been  gentle- 
men of  taste,  scholarship,  and  eloquence.  I 
have  found  one  very  splendid  passage  that  has 
somehow  survived  the  wrecks  of  nearly  four 
hundred  years. 

Lord  Chief  Justice  Crewe,  who  became 
Chief  Justice  of  England  in  1624,  delivered 
in  the  case  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford  the  following 
noble  tribute  to  the  great  house  of  De  Vere : — 

32 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"I  heard  a  great  peer  of  this  realm,  and 
learned,  say,  when  he  lived,  there  was  no  king 
in  Christendom  had  such  a  subject  as  Oxford. 
He  came  in  with  the  Conqueror,  Earl  of  Guienne ; 
shortly  after  the  Conquest  made  Great  Cham- 
berlain, above  400  years  ago,  by  Henry  I.,  the 
Conqueror's  son;  confirmed  by  Henry  II.  This 
great  honour — this  high  and  noble  dignity — hath 
continued  ever  since,  in  the  remarkable  surname 
De  Vere,  by  so  many  ages,  descents,  and  gener- 
ations, as  no  other  kingdom  can  produce  such  a 
peer  in  one  and  the  selfsame  name  and  title.  I 
find  in  all  this  time  but  two  attainders  of  this 
noble  family,  and  those  in  stormy  and  tempest- 
uous time,  when  the  government  was  unsettled, 
and  the  kingdom  in  competition.  I  have  la- 
boured to  make  a  covenant  with  myself,  that 
affection  may  not  press  upon  judgment,  for  I  sup- 
pose that  there  is  no  man  that  hath  any  appre- 
hension of  gentry  or  nobleness,  but  his  affection 
stands  to  the  continuance  of  so  noble  a  name  and 
fame,  and  would  take  hold  of  a  twig  or  twine- 
thread  to  uphold  it.  And  yet  Time  hath  his  re- 
volutions :  there  must  be  an  end  to  all  temporal 

3  33 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

things,  finis  rerum, — and  end  of  names  and  dig- 
nities, and  whatsoever  is  terrene;  and  why  not 
of  De  Vere?  For  where  is  De  Bohun? — where 
is  Mowbray? — where  is  Mortimer?  Nay,  what 
is  more  and  most  of  all,  where  is  Plantagenet? 
They  are  entombed  in  the  urns  and  sepulchres 
of  mortality.  And  yet,  let  the  name  and  dig- 
nity of  De  Vere  stand  so  long  as  it  pleases  God. " 

And  alas!  we  can  now  ask,  Where  is  De 
Vere?  This  great  Earldom  of  Oxford  was 
created  in  1142,  and  has  disappeared  long  ago 
in  the  limbo  of  peerages  said  to  be  in  abeyance. 

In  these  days,  Antony,  when  peerages  are 
bought  by  men  successful  in  trade  and  sold  by 
men  successful  in  intrigue,  such  elevations  in 
rank  have  ceased  to  be  regarded  as  the  neces- 
sary concomitants  of  "great  honour"  and 
"high  and  noble  dignity";  so  that  it  has  long 
been  more  reputable  in  the  House  of  Lords 
to  be  a  descendant  than  an  ancestor.  But 
among  the  older  great  families  there  still 
remains  a  pride  that  has  descended  unsullied 
through  many  generations,  which  serves  as  a 

34 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

fine  deterrent  from  evil  deeds,  and  a  constant 
incentive  to  honour — and  in  England  the 
history  of  great  names  can  never  be  totally 
ignored,  even  though  the  country  may  be 
ruled  by  persons  who  do  not  know  who  were 
their  own  grandfathers. 

Nothing  is  more  ridiculous  and  cheap  than 
to  sneer  at  honourable  descent  from  famous 
ancestors ;  it  divertingly  illustrates  the  fable  of 
the  sour  grapes. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


35 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

You  will  have  seen  from  the  extracts  I  have 
already  quoted  to  you  of  the  write  s  of  the 
Elizabethan  age  that  the  style  of  all  of  them 
possesses  something  large  and  resonant,  some- 
thing that  may  be  said  to  constitute  the 
"grand  style"  in  prose;  and  this  quite  natur- 
ally without  effort,  and  without  the  slightest 
touch  of  affectation. 

A  great  writer  who  came  immediately 
after  the  Elizabethans — namely,  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  who  lived  from  1605  to  1682 — displays 
the  development  in  his  style  of  something  less 
simple  and  more  precious  than  ruled  in  'he 
former  generation. 

It  is  difficult  to  select  any  passage  from  his 
works  where  all  is  so  good.  He  was  curious 
and  exact  in  his  choice  of  words  and  com- 

36 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

manded  a  wide  vocabulary.  There  is  deliber- 
ate ingenuity  in  the  framing  of  his  sentences, 
which  arrests  attention  and  markedly  distin- 
guishes his  style.  His  Urn  Burial,  in  spite  of 
its  elaboration,  reaches  a  grave  and  solemn 
splendour. 

The  fifth  chapter,  which  begins  by  speaking 
of  the  dead  who  have  "quietly  rested  under 
the  drums  and  tramplings  of  three  conquests," 
rises  to  a  very  noble  elevation  as  English  prose. 

Here  I  quote  one  paragraph  of  it,  char- 
acteristic of  the  whole : — 

"Darkness  and  light  divide  the  course  of  time, 
and  oblivion  shares  with  memory  a  great  part 
even  of  our  living  beings ;  we  slightly  remember 
our  felicities,  and  the  smartest  strokes  of  afflic- 
tion leave  but  short  smart  upon  us.  Sense  endur- 
eth  no  extremities,  and  sorrows  destroy  us  or 
themselves.  To  weep  into  stones  are  fables.  Af- 
flictions induce  callosities ;  miseries  are  slippery, 
or  fall  like  snow  upon  us,  which  notwithstand- 
ing is  no  unhappy  stupidity.  To  be  ignorant 
of  evils  to  come,  and  forgetful  of  evils  past, 
37 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

is  a  merciful  provision  in  nature,  whereby  we 
digest  the  mixture  of  our  few  and  evil  days,  and, 
our  delivered  senses  not  relapsing  into  cutting 
remembrances,  our  sorrows  are  not  kept  raw  by 
the  edge  of  repetitions.  A  great  part  of  antiquity 
contented  their  hopes  of  subsistency  with  a 
transmigration  of  their  souls, — a  good  way  to 
continue  their  memories,  while  having  the 
advantage  of  plural  successions  they  could  not 
but  act  something  remarkable  in  such  variety 
of  beings,  and,  enjoying  the  fame  of  their  passed 
selves,  make  accumulation  of  glory  unto  their 
last  durations.  Others,  rather  than  be  lost  in 
the  uncomfortable  night  of  nothing,  were  con- 
tent to  recede  into  the  common  being,  and  make 
one  particle  of  the  public  soul  of  all  things,  which 
was  no  more  than  to  return  into  their  unknown 
and  divine  original  again.  Egyptian  ingenuity 
was  more  unsatisfied,  contriving  their  bodies  in 
sweet  consistencies,  to  attend  the  return  of  their 
souls.  But  all  was  vanity,  feeding  the  wind, 
and  folly.  The  Egyptian  mummies,  which 
Cambyses  or  Time  hath  spared,  avarice  now 
consumeth.  Mummy  is  become  merchandise. 
38 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

Mizraim  cures  wounds,  and  Pharaoh  is  sold  for 
balsams. " 


Milton  was  a  contemporary  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  and,  like  all  great  poets,  was  a 
master  of  resounding  prose.  All  that  he 
wrote,  both  in  verse  and  prose,  is  severely 
classic  in  its  form.  His  Samson  Agonistes  is 
perhaps  the  finest  example  of  a  play  written 
in  English  after  the  manner  of  the  Greek 
dramas. 

Milton  wrote  The  Areopagitica  in  defence  of 
the  liberty  of  publishers  and  printers  of  books. 
And  it  stands  for  all  time  as  the  first  and  great- 
est argument  against  interference  with  the 
freedom  of  the  press. 

The  Areopagitae  were  judges  at  Athens  in  its 
more  flourishing  time,  who  sat  on  Mars  Hill 
and  made  decrees  and  passed  sentences  which 
were  delivered  in  public  and  commanded  uni- 
versal respect. 

I  will  quote  one  of  the  finest  passages  in  this 
great  and  splendid  utterance:— 

39 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

' '  I  deny  not  but  that  it  is  of  greatest  concern- 
ment in  the  Church  and  Commonwealth  to  have 
a  vigilant  eye  how  books  demean  themselves  as 
well  as  men;  and  thereafter  to  confine,  imprison, 
and  do  sharpest  justice  on  them  as  malefactors : 
for  books  are  not  absolutely  dead  things,  but  do 
contain  a  potency  of  life  in  them  to  be  as  active 
as  that  soul  was  whose  progeny  they  are;  nay, 
they  do  preserve  as  in  a  vial  the  purest  efficacy 
and  extraction  of  that  living  intellect  that  bred 
them.  I  know  they  are  as  lively,  and  as  vigor- 
ously productive,  as  those  fabulous  dragons' 
teeth;  and  being  sown  up  and  down,  may  chance 
to  spring  up  armed  men. 

"And  yet  on  the  other  hand,  unless  wariness 
be  used,  as  good  almost  kill  a  man  as  kill  a  good 
book ;  who  kills  a  man  kills  a  reasonable  creature, 
God's  image;  but  he  who  destroys  a  good  book 
kills  reason  itself;  kills  the  Image  of  God  as  it 
were  in  the  eye.  Many  a  man  lives  a  burden  to 
the  earth;  but  a  good  book  is  the  precious  life- 
blood  of  a  master-spirit;  embalmed  and  treas- 
ured up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life. 

"  'Tis  true,  no  age  can  restore  a  life,  whereof, 
40 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

perhaps,  there  is  no  great  loss;  and  revolutions 
of  ages  do  not  oft  recover  the  loss  of  a  rejected 
truth,  for  the  want  of  which  whole  nations  fare 
the  worse. 

"We  should  be  wary,  therefore,  what  perse- 
cutions we  raise  against  the  living  labours  of 
public  men;  how  we  spill  that  seasoned  life  of 
man  preserved  and  stored  up  in  books ;  since  we 
see  a  kind  of  homicide  may  be  thus  committed, 
sometimes  a  martyrdom,  and,  if  it  extend  to  the 
whole  impression,  a  kind  of  massacre,  whereof 
the  execution  ends  not  in  the  slaying  of  an  ele- 
mental life,  but  strikes  at  that  ethereal  and  fifth 
essence,  the  breath  of  reason  itself;  slays  an 
immortality  rather  than  a  life." 

This  is  a  fine  defence  of  the  inviolability  of  a 
good  and  proper  book. 

A  bad  book  will  generally  die  of  itself,  but 
there  is  something  horribly  malignant  about  a 
wicked  book,  as  it  must  always  be  worse  than  a 
wicked  man,  for  a  man  can  repent,  but  a  book 
cannot. 

It  is  the  men  of  letters  who  keep  alive  the 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

books  of  the  great  from  generation  to  gener- 
ation, and  they  are  never  likely  to  preserve  a 
wicked  book  from  oblivion.  Ultimately  such 
go  to  light  fires  and  encompass  groceries. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


42 


8 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Milton,  of  whom  I  wrote  in  my  last  letter, 
was  five  years  older  than  Jeremy  Taylor,  of 
whom  I  am  going  to  write  to-day.  The 
latter's  writings  differ  very  much  from  Mil- 
ton's, although  they  were  contemporaries 
for  the  whole  of  the  former's  life. 

From  the  grave  and  august  periods  of 
Milton  to  the  sweet  beauty  of  Jeremy  Taylor  is 
as  the  passing  from  out  the  austere  halls  of 
Justice  to  lovely  fields  full  of  flowers. 

Your  and  my  great  kinsman,  Coleridge,  pro- 
nounced Jeremy  Taylor  to  be  the  most  eloquent 
of  all  divines;  and  Coleridge  was  a  great  critic. 

Indeed,  there  seems  to  dwell  permanently  in 
Jeremy  Taylor's  mind  a  compelling  sweetness 
and  serenity. 

His  parables,  though  sometimes  perhaps 
43 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

almost  of  set  purpose  fanciful,  are  always  full 
of  beauty. 

How  can  anyone  withhold  sympathy  and 
affection  from  the  writer  of  such  a  passage  as 
this : — 

"But  as,  when  the  sun  approaches  towards 
the  gates  of  the  morning,  he  first  opens  a  little 
eye  of  heaven,  and  sends  away  the  spirits  of 
darkness,  and  gives  light  to  a  cock,  and  calls  up 
the  lark  to  matins,  and  by  and  by  gilds  the 
fringes  of  a  cloud,  and  peeps  over  the  eastern 
hills,  thrusting  out  his  golden  horns,  like  those 
which  decked  the  brows  of  Moses  when  he  was 
forced  to  wear  a  veil  because  himself  had  seen 
the  face  of  God ;  and  still,  while  a  man  tells  the 
story,  the  sun  gets  up  higher,  till  he  shows  a  fair 
face  and  a  full  light,  and  then  he  shines  one  whole 
day,  under  a  cloud  often,  and  sometimes  weeping 
great  and  little  showers,  and  sets  quickly,  so  is  a 
man's  reason  and  his  life. " 

Again : — 

"No  man  can  tell  but  he  that  loves  his  child- 
ren, how  many  delicious  accents  make  a  man's 
44 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

heart  dance  in  the  pretty  conversation  of  those 
dear  pledges;  their  childishness,  their  stammer- 
ing, their  little  angers,  their  innocence,  their 
imperfections,  their  necessities,  are  so  many 
little  emanations  of  joy  and  comfort  to  him  that 
delights  in  their  persons  and  society ;  but  he  that 
loves  not  his  wife  and  children,  feeds  a  lioness 
at  home,  and  broods  a  nest  of  sorrows;  and 
blessing  itself  cannot  make  him  happy;  so  that 
all  the  commandments  of  God  enjoining  a  man 
to  'love  his  wife '  are  nothing  but  so  many  neces- 
sities and  capacities  of  joy.  '  She  that  is  loved, 
is  safe;  and  he  that  loves,  is  joyful.'  Love  is  a 
union  of  all  things  excellent;  it  contains  in  it 
proportion  and  satisfaction,  and  rest  and  confi- 
dence. " 

Again : — 

"So  have  I  seen  a  lark  rising  from  his  bed  of 
grass,  and  soaring  upwards,  singing  as  he  rises, 
and  hopes  to  get  to  heaven,  and  climb  above  the 
clouds;  but  the  poor  bird  was  beaten  back  with 
the  loud  sighings  of  an  eastern  wind,  and  his 
motion  made  irregular  and  inconstant,  descend- 
45 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

ing  more  at  every  breath  of  the  tempest,  than  it 
could  recover  by  the  liberation  and  frequent 
weighing  of  his  wings ;  till  the  little  creature  was 
forced  to  sit  down  and  pant,  and  stay  till  the 
storm  was  over;  and  then  it  made  a  prosperous 
flight,  and  did  rise  and  sing,  as  if  it  had  learned 
music  and  motion  from  an  angel,  as  he  passed 
sometimes  through  the  air,  about  his  ministries 
here  below;  so  is  the  prayer  of  a  good  man. " 

Again : — 

"I  am  fallen  into  the  hands  of  publicans  and 
sequestrators,  and  they  have  taken  all  from  me ; 
what  now?  Let  me  look  about  me.  They  have 
left  me  the  sun  and  moon,  fire  and  water,  a 
loving  wife,  and  many  friends  to  pity  me,  and 
some  to  relieve  me,  and  I  can  still  discourse ;  and 
unless  I  list,  they  have  not  taken  away  my  merry 
countenance  and  my  cheerful  spirit,  and  a  good 
conscience ;  they  still  have  left  me  the  Providence 
of  God,  and  all  the  promises  of  the  Gospel,  and 
my  religion,  and  my  hopes  of  heaven,  and  my 
charity  to  them  too;  and  still  I  sleep  and  digest, 
I  eat  and  drink,  I  read  and  meditate ;  I  can  walk 
46 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

in  my  neighbour's  pleasant  fields,  and  see  the 
varieties  of  natural  beauties,  and  delight  in  all 
that  in  which  God  delights,  that  is,  in  virtue  and 
wisdom,  in  the  whole  creation,  and  in  God  Him- 
self. " 

Here,  Antony,  is  true  wisdom.  True,  in- 
deed, is  it  that  no  one  can  take  away  from  you 
your  merry  countenance,  your  cheerful  spirit, 
and  your  good  conscience  unless  you  choose; 
keep  all  three,  Antony,  throughout  your  life, 
and  you  will  be  happy  yourself  and  make 
everyone  about  you  happy,  and  that  is  to 
make  a  little  heaven  of  your  earthly  home. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


47 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Some  day,  no  doubt,  you  will  read  some  of 
the  celebrated  diaries  that  have  come  down  to 
us.  The  best  known  of  such  books  is  Pepys' s 
Diary  which  was  written  in  a  kind  of  short- 
hand, and  so  lay  undeciphered  from  his  death 
in  1703  for  more  than  a  century.  One  of  its 
merits  is  its  absolute  self -revelation ;  for  Pepys 
exposes  to  us  his  character  without  a  shadow 
of  reserve  in  all  its  vanity ;  and  the  other  is  the 
faithful  picture  it  gives  us  of  the  time  of  the 
Restoration. 

But,  though  less  popular,  Evelyn's  Diary  is, 
I  think,  in  many  ways  superior  to  that  of 
Pepys. ' 

There  is  a  quiet,  unostentatious  dignity 
about  Evelyn  which  is  altogether  absent  in 

1  Another  diary  that  you  should  read  by  and  by  is  that  of 
Henry  Grabb  Robinson. 

48 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

the  garrulous  Pepys,  and,  indeed  I  find  some- 
thing very  beautiful  and  touching  in  the  grief 
Evelyn  pours  forth  upon  the  death  of  his  little 
son  of  five  years  old : — 

"The  day  before  he  died, "  writes  Evelyn,  "he 
call'd  to  me  and  in  a  more  serious  manner  than 
usual,  told  me  that  for  all  I  loved  him  so  dearly 
I  should  give  my  house,  land,  and  all  my  fine 
things,  to  his  Brother  Jack,  he  should  have  none 
of  them ;  and  next  morning  when  he  found  him- 
self ill,  and  that  I  persuaded  him  to  keepe  his 
hands  in  bed,  he  demanded  whether  he  might 
pray  to  God  with  his  hands  un-joyn'd;  and  a 
little  after,  whilst  in  great  agonie,  whether  he 
should  not  offend  God  by  using  His  holy  name 
so  often  calling  for  ease.  What  shall  I  say  of 
his  frequent  pathetical  ejaculations  utter'd  of 
himselfe:  Sweete  Jesus  save  me,  deliver  me, 
pardon  my  sinns,  let  Thine  angels  receive  me! 

' '  So  early  knowledge,  so  much  piety  and  per- 
fection! But  thus  God  having  dress'd  up  a 
Saint  for  himselfe,  would  not  longer  permit  him 
with  us,  unworthy  of  ye  future  fruites  of  this  in- 
comparable hopefull  blossome.  Such  a  child  I 

4  49 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

never  saw :  for  such  a  child  I  blesse  God  in  whose 
bosome  he  is !  May  I  and  mine  become  as  this 
little  child,  who  now  follows  the  child  Jesus  that 
Lamb  of  God  in  a  white  robe  whithersoever  he 
goes ;  even  so,  Lord  Jesus,  fiat  voluntas  tua!  Thou 
gavest  him  to  us,  Thou  hast  taken  him  from  us, 
blessed  be  ye  name  of  ye  Lord!  That  I  had 
anything  acceptable  to  Thee  was  from  Thy 
grace  alone,  since  from  me  he  had  nothing  but 
sin,  but  that  Thou  hast  pardon'd!  Blessed  be 
my  God  for  ever,  Amen !  I  caused  his  body  to 
be  coffin'd  in  lead,  and  reposited  on  the  3Oth  at 
8  o'clock  that  night  in  the  church  at  Deptford, 
accompanied  with  divers  of  my  relations  and 
neighbours  among  whom  I  distributed  rings 
with  this  motto:  Dominus  abstulit;  intending, 
God  willing,  to  have  him  transported  with  my 
owne  body  to  be  interr'd  in  our  dormitory  in 
Wotton  Church,  in  my  dear  native  county  of 
Surrey,  and  to  lay  my  bones  and  mingle  my 
dust  with  my  fathers,  if  God  be  gracious  to  me 
and  make  me  fit  for  Him  as  this  blessed  child 
was.  The  Lord  Jesus  sanctify  this  and  all  my 
other  afflictions,  Amen ! 
50 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

' '  Here  ends  the  joy  of  my  life,  and  for  which 
I  go  even  mourning  to  my  grave. " 

This  great  love  and  reverence  for  little 
children  is  peculiarly  in  accord  with  Christian- 
ity, for  we  should  remember  that  it  was  the 
WISE  men,  who,  when  they  had  journeyed  far 
across  the  world  to  salute  the  King  of  kings, 
laid  their  offerings  down  at  the  feet  of  a  little 
child. 

Is  there  not  something  to  reverence  in  faith 
and  resignation  such  as  are  here  expressed  by 
Evelyn?  Were  not  these  men  of  old  with 
their  unshakable  faith  and  simple  piety  better 
and  happier  than  those  who  in  these  days  know 
so  much  more  and  believe  so  much  less? 

We,  no  doubt,  have  the  knowledge,  but 
perhaps  they  had  the  wisdom. 

I  think,  Antony,  that  in  the  history  of 
England  we  shall  have  difficulty  in  finding  any 
of  our  greatest  men  whose  hearts  and  minds 
were  not  filled  with  a  reverence  for  God  and  a 
faith  in  something  beyond  the  blind  forces 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

which  are  all  that  Science  has  to  offer  mankind 
as  a  guide  of  life. 

All  who  have  acted  most  nobly  from  the 
days  of  Ralegh  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  down 
to  the  days  of  Gordon  of  Khartoum,  and  down 
again  to  our  own  days  when  the  youth  of 
England  upheld  the  invincible  valour,  self- 
sacrifice,  and  glory  of  their  race  in  the  greatest 
of  all  wars, — all  have  been  filled  with  the  love 
of  God  and  have  found  therein  a  perfect  seren- 
ity in  the  face  of  death,  and  that  peace  which 
passeth  all  understanding. 

The  character  of  our  race  rests  indubitably 
upon  that  faith,  and  he  who  lifts  his  voice,  or 
directs  his  pen,  to  tear  it  down,  had  better 
never  have  been  born. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


IO 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

In  these  letters  I  am  never  going  to  quote  to 
you  anything  that  does  not  seem  to  me  to  rise 
to  a  level  of  merit  well  above  ordinary  proper 
prose.  There  are  many  writers  whose  general 
correctness  and  excellence  is  not  to  be  ques- 
tioned or  denied  whom  I  shall  not  select  in 
these  letters  for  your  particular  admiration. 

By  and  by,  when  your  own  love  of  literature 
impels  you  to  excursions  in  all  directions,  you 
may  perhaps  come  to  differ  from  my  judgment, 
for  everyone's  taste  must  vary  a  little  from 
that  of  others. 

English  prose  in  its  excellence  follows  the 
proportions  manifested  by  the  contours  of  the 
elevation  of  the  world's  land. 

Vast  tracts  lie  very  near  the  sea-level,  of 
such  are  the  interminable  outpourings  of 

53 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

newspapers  and  novels  and  school  books. 
And,  as  each  ascent  from  the  sea-level  is 
reached,  less  and  less  land  attains  to  it,  and 
when  the  snow-line  is  approached  only  a  very 
small  proportion  indeed  of  the  land  aspires  so 
high. 

So  among  writers,  those  who  climb  to  the 
snow-line  are  a  slender  band  compared  to  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  lower  slopes  and  plains. 

In  these  letters  I  do  not  intend  to  mistake 
a  pedlar  for  a  mountaineer,  nor  a  hearthstone 
for  a  granite  peak.  Time  slowly  buries  deep 
in  oblivion  the  writings  of  the  industrious  and 
the  dull. 

Born  fifteen  years  later  than  Jeremy  Taylor, 
of  whom  I  wrote  in  a  former  letter,  John  Bun- 
yan  in  1660,  being  a  Baptist,  suffered  the 
persecution  then  the  lot  of  all  dissenters,  and 
was  cast  into  Bedford  gaol,  where  he  lay  for 
conscience'  sake  for  twelve  years.  "As  I 
walked  through  the  wilderness  of  this  world," 
said  he,  "I  lighted  on  a  certain  place  where 
was  a  den,  and  laid  me  down  in  that  place  to 

54 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

sleep;  and  as  I  slept  I  dreamed  a  dream" ;  and 
the  dream  which  he  dreamed  has  passed  into 
all  lands,  and  has  been  translated  into  all 
languages,  and  has  taken  its  place  with  the 
Bible  and  with  the  Imitation  of  Christ  as  a 
guide  of  life. 

The  force  of  simplicity  finds  here  its  most 
complete  expression ;  the  story  wells  from  the 
man's  heart,  whence  come  all  great  things: — 

"Then  said  the  Interpreter  to  Christian, 
'  Hast  thou  considered  all  these  things  ? ' 

"Christian.  'Yes,  and  they  put  me  in  hope 
and  fear. ' 

"Interpreter.  'Well,  keep  all  things  so  in  thy 
mind  that  they  may  be  as  a  goad  in  thy  sides,  to 
prick  thee  forward  in  the  way  thou  must  go. ' 

"Then  Christian  began  to  gird  up  his  loins, 
and  to  address  himself  to  his  journey. 

"Then  said  the  Interpreter,  'The  Comforter 
be  always  with  thee,  good  Christian,  to  guide 
thee  in  the  way  that  leads  to  the  city. ' 

"So  Christian  went  on  his  way. 

"Now  I  saw  in  my  dream  that  the  highway 
55 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

up  which  Christian  had  to  go  was  fenced  on 
either  side  with  a  wall,  and  that  wall  was  called 
Salvation.  Up  this  way,  therefore,  did  bur- 
dened Christian  run,  but  not  without  great 
difficulty,  because  of  the  load  on  his  back.  He 
ran  thus  till  he  came  at  a  place  somewhat 
ascending,  and  upon  that  place  stood  a  cross, 
and  a  little  below  in  the  bottom  a  sepulchre. 

"So  I  saw  in  my  dream  that  just  as  Christian 
came  up  with  the  cross,  his  burden  loosed  from 
off  his  shoulders,  and  fell  from  off  his  back,  and 
began  to  tumble,  and  so  continued  to  do  till  it 
came  to  the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre,  where  it  fell 
in,  and  I  saw  it  no  more. 

"Then  was  Christian  glad  and  lightsome,  and 
said  with  a  merry  heart,  '  He  hath  given  me  rest 
by  His  sorrow,  and  life  by  His  death. ' 

"Then  he  stood  awhile  to  look  and  wonder, 
for  it  was  very  surprising  to  him  that  the  sight 
of  the  cross  should  thus  ease  him  of  his  burden. 

' '  He  looked,  therefore,  and  looked  again,  even 
till  the  springs  that  were  in  his  head  sent  the 
waters  down  his  cheeks. " 

Bunyan  died  in  1688,  and  Dr.  Johnson  was 
56 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

born  in  1709.  Many  years,  therefore,  elapsed 
between  the  time  when  they  each  displayed 
their  greatest  powers. 

The  interval  was  occupied  by  many 
reputable  worldly-wise  writers,  but  I  do  not 
myself  find,  between  these  two  masters  of 
English  prose,  anyone  who  wrote  passages  of 
such  great  lustre  that  I  can  quote  them  for 
your  admiration. 

You  will  have  noticed,  Antony,  that  all  the 
writers  whom  I  have  quoted,  and  who  reached 
the  true  nobility  of  speech  necessary  to  com- 
mand our  tribute  of  unstinted  praise,  have 
been  men  of  manifest  piety  and  reverence. 
And  you  will  find  it  difficult  to  discover  really 
great  and  eloquent  prose  from  the  pen  of  any 
man  whose  heart  is  not  filled  with  a  simple 
faith  in  the  goodness  of  God. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


57 


II 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  have  come  now  to  Dr.  Johnson,  and  it  is 
almost  a  test  of  a  true  man  of  letters  that  he 
should  love  him. 

He  was  rugged  and  prejudiced,  but  mag- 
nanimous; impatient  with  the  presumptuous, 
tender  to  modest  ignorance,  proudly  independ- 
ent of  the  patronage  of  the  great,  and  was 
often  doing  deeds  of  noble  self-sacrifice  by 
stealth. 

Through  long  years  of  hard,  unremitting  toil 
for  his  daily  bread  he  lived  bravely  and 
sturdily,  with  no  extraneous  help  but  his  stout 
oak  stick — an  unconquerable  man. 

His  prose  rises  on  occasion  to  a  measured 
and  stately  grandeur  above  the  reach  of  any 
of  his  contemporaries. 

It  was  not  often  that  he  unveiled  to  the 
58 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

public  gaze  the  beatings  of  his  own  noble 
heart,  or  invited  the  world  to  contemplate  the 
depression  and  suffering  amid  which  his  un- 
ending labours  were  accomplished. 

The  concluding  page  of  the  preface  to  the 
first  edition  of  the  great  Dictionary  is,  there- 
fore, the  more  precious  and  moving.  I  know 
not  why  this  majestic  utterance  came  to  be 
deleted  in  later  editions ;  certainly  it  sanctifies, 
and  as  it  were  crowns  with  a  crown  of  sorrow, 
the  greatest  work  of  his  life ;  and  with  reverent 
sympathy  and  unstinted  admiration  I  repro- 
duce it  here : — 

"Life  may  be  lengthened  by  care,  though 
death  cannot  ultimately  be  defeated :  tongues, 
like  governments,  have  a  natural  tendency  to 
degeneration :  we  have  long  preserved  our  con- 
stitution, let  us  make  some  struggles  for  our 
language. 

' '  In  hope  of  giving  longevity  to  that  which  its 
own  nature  forbids  to  be  immortal,  I  have  de- 
voted this  book,  the  labour  of  years,  to  the  hon- 
our of  my  country,  that  we  may  no  longer  yield 
59 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

the  palm  of  philology  to  the  nations  of  the  con- 
tinent. The  chief  glory  of  every  people  arises 
from  its  authors;  whether  I  shall  add  anything 
by  my  own  writings  to  the  reputation  of  English 
literature,  must  be  left  to  time :  much  of  my  life 
has  been  lost  under  the  pressure  of  disease ;  much 
has  been  trifled  away;  and  much  has  always 
been  spent  in  provision  for  the  day  that  was 
passing  over  me;  but  I  shall  not  think  my  em- 
ployment useless  or  ignoble,  if  by  my  assistance 
foreign  nations,  and  distant  ages,  gain  access  to 
the  propagators  of  knowledge,  and  understand 
the  teachers  of  truth;  if  my  labours  afford  light 
to  the  repositories  of  science,  and  add  celebrity 
to  Bacon,  to  Hooker,  to  Milton,  and  to  Boyle. 
"When  I  am  animated  by  this  wish,  I  look 
with  pleasure  on  my  book,  however  defective, 
and  deliver  it  to  the  world  with  the  spirit  of  a 
man  that  has  endeavoured  well.  That  it  will 
immediately  become  popular  I  have  not  pro- 
mised to  myself :  a  few  wild  blunders  and  risible 
absurdities,  from  which  no  work  of  such  multi- 
plicity was  ever  free,  may  for  a  time  furnish  folly 
with  laughter,  and  harden  ignorance  in  con- 
60 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

tempt ;  but  useful  diligence  will  at  last  prevail, 
and  there  never  can  be  wanting  some,  who  dis- 
tinguish desert,  who  will  consider  that  no  dic- 
tionary of  a  living  tongue  can  ever  be  perfect, 
since  while  it  is  hastening  to  publication,  some 
words  are  budding,  and  some  falling  away;  that 
a  whole  life  cannot  be  spent  upon  syntax  and 
etymology,  and  that  even  a  whole  life  would  not 
be  sufficient;  that  he  whose  design  includes 
whatever  language  can  express  must  often  speak 
of  what  he  does  not  understand;  that  a  writer 
will  sometimes  be  hurried  by  eagerness  to  the 
end,  and  sometimes  faint  with  weariness  under 
a  task  which  Scaliger  compares  to  the  labours 
of  the  anvil  and  the  mine ;  that  what  is  obvious 
is  not  always  known,  and  what  is  known  is  not 
always  present ;  that  sudden  fits  of  inadvertency 
will  surprise  vigilance,  slight  avocations  will 
seduce  attention,  and  casual  eclipses  of  the  mind 
will  darken  learning;  and  that  the  writer  shall 
often  in  vain  trace  his  memory  at  the  moment 
of  need  for  that  which  yesterday  he  knew  with 
intuitive  readiness,  and  which  will  come  uncalled 
into  his  thoughts  to-morrow. 
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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

"In  this  work,  when  it  shall  be  found  that 
much  is  omitted,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that 
much  likewise  is  performed ;  and  though  no  book 
was  ever  spared  out  of  tenderness  to  the  author, 
and  the  world  is  little  solicitous  to  know  whence 
proceeded  the  faults  of  that  which  it  condemns, 
yet  it  may  gratify  curiosity  to  inform  it  that  the 
English  Dictionary  was  written  with  little  assist- 
ance of  the  learned,  and  without  any  patronage 
of  the  great ;  not  in  the  soft  obscurities  of  retire- 
ment, or  under  the  shelter  of  academic  bowers, 
but  amidst  inconvenience  and  distraction,  in 
sickness  and  in  sorrow;  and  it  may  repress  the 
triumph  of  malignant  criticism  to  observe,  that 
if  our  language  is  not  here  fully  displayed,  I  have 
only  failed  in  an  attempt  which  no  human 
powers  have  hitherto  completed.  If  the  lexicons 
of  ancient  tongues,  now  immutably  fixed  and 
comprised  in  a  few  volumes,  be  yet,  after  the 
toil  of  successive  ages,  inadequate  and  delusive ; 
if  the  aggregated  knowledge  and  co-operating 
diligence  of  the  Italian  academicians  did  not 
secure  them  from  the  censure  of  Beni;  if  the 
embodied  critics  of  France,  when  fifty  years  had 
62 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

been  spent  upon  their  work,  were  obliged  to 
change  its  economy,  and  give  their  second 
editions  another  form,  I  may  surely  be  contented 
without  the  praise  of  perfection  which,  if  I  could 
obtain,  in  this  gloom  of  solitude  what  would  it 
avail  me? 

"I  have  protracted  my  work  till  most  of  those 
whom  I  wished  to  please  have  sunk  into  the 
grave,  and  success  and  miscarriage  are  empty 
sounds;  I  therefore  dismiss  it  with  frigid  tran- 
quillity, having  little  to  fear  or  hope  from  cen- 
sure or  from  praise. " 

This  seems  to  me  to  be  the  noblest  passage 
that  Johnson  ever  wrote. 

Almost  all  the  most  magnificent  utterances 
of  man  are  tinged  with  sadness.  In  this  they 
possess  a  quality  that  is  almost  inseparable 
from  grandeur  wherever  displayed.  No  man 
of  sensibility  and  taste  feels  it  possible  to  make 
jokes  himself,  or  to  tolerate  them  from  others 
when  in  the  presence  of  the  Falls  of  Niagara, 
or  a  tempest  at  sea,  or  when  he  views  from  a 
peak  in  the  Andes — as  I  have  done — the  sun 

63 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

descend  into  the  Pacific.  The  greatest  pic- 
tures painted  by  man  touch  the  heart  rather 
than  elate  it;  and  genius  finds  its  highest 
expression  not  in  comedy,  but  in  tragedy. 

And  this  need  cause  us  no  surprise  when  we 
consider  how  much  of  the  great  work  in  letters 
and  in  art  is  directly  due  to  the  writer  possess- 
ing in  full  measure  the  gift  of  sympathy. 

People  with  this  gift,  even  if  they  are  with- 
out the  faculty  of  expression,  are  beloved  by 
those  about  them,  which  must  bring  them 
happiness. 

Till  he  was  over  fifty  Dr.  Johnson's  life  was 
a  weary  struggle  with  poverty.  He  wrote 
Rasselas  under  the  pressure  of  an  urgent  need 
of  money  to  send  to  his  dying  mother.  His 
wife  died  some  few  years  earlier.  I  have 
always  thought  that  the  sad  reflections  he  put 
into  the  mouth  of  an  old  philosopher  towards 
the  end  of  the  story  were  indeed  the  true 
expressions  of  his  own  tired  heart : — 

"Praise,"  said  the  sage  with  a  sigh,  "is  to 

an  old  man  an  empty  sound.     I  have  neither 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

mother  to  be  delighted  with  the  reputation  of 
her  son,  nor  wife  to  partake  the  honours  of  her 
husband. 

"I  have  outlived  my  friends  and  my  rivals. 
Nothing  is  now  of  much  importance ;  for  I  cannot 
extend  my  interest  beyond  myself.  Youth  is 
delighted  with  applause,  because  it  is  considered 
as  the  earnest  of  some  future  good,  and  because 
the  prospect  of  life  is  far  extended;  but  to  me, 
who  am  now  declining  to  decrepitude,  there  is 
little  to  be  feared  from  the  malevolence  of  men, 
and  yet  less  to  be  hoped  from  their  affection  or 
esteem.  Something  they  may  take  away,  but 
they  can  give  me  nothing.  Riches  would  now 
be  useless,  and  high  employment  would  be  pain. 
My  retrospect  of  life  recalls  to  my  view  many 
opportunities  of  good  neglected,  much  time 
squandered  upon  trifles,  and  more  lost  in  idle- 
ness and  vacancy.  I  leave  many  great  de- 
signs unattempted,  and  many  great  attempts 
unfinished. 

"My  mind  is  burdened  with  no  heavy  crime, 
and  therefore  I  compose  myself  to  tranquillity; 
endeavour  to  abstract  my  thoughts  from  hopes 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

and  cares,  which,  though  reason  knows  them  to 
be  vain,  still  try  to  keep  their  old  possession  of 
the  heart;  expect,  with  serene  humility,  that 
hour  which  nature  cannot  long  delay ;  and  hope 
to  possess,  in  a  better  state,  that  happiness  which 
here  I  could  not  find,  and  that  virtue  which  here 
I  have  not  attained. " 

From  the  results  of  Rasselas  he  sent  his 
mother  money,  but  she  had  expired  before  it 
reached  her. 

Down  to  the  time  of  Dr.  Johnson  it  was  the 
custom  for  writers  of  books  and  poems  to  seek 
and  enjoy  the  patronage  of  some  great  noble- 
man, to  whom  they  generally  dedicated  their 
works. 

And  in  pursuance  of  that  custom  Dr.  John- 
son, when  he  first  issued  the  plan  or  prospectus 
of  his  great  Dictionary  in  1747,  addressed  it  to 
Lord  Chesterfield,  who  was  regarded  as  the 
most  brilliant  and  cultivated  nobleman  of  his 
time.  Lord  Chesterfield,  however,  took  no 
notice  of  the  matter  till  the  Dictionary  was  on 
the  point  of  coming  out  in  1755,  and  then 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

wrote  some  flippant  remarks  about  it  in  a 
publication  called  The  World. 

At  this  Dr.  Johnson  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
condescending  peer,  which  became  celebrated 
throughout  England  and  practically  put  an 
end  to  writers  seeking  the  patronage  of  the 
great. 

This  wonderful  letter  concludes  thus: — 

' '  Seven  years,  my  lord,  have  now  passed  since 
I  waited  in  your  outward  rooms,  or  was  repulsed 
from  your  door;  during  which  time  I  have  been 
pushing  on  my  work  through  difficulties,  of 
which  it  is  useless  to  complain,  and  have  brought 
it,  at  last,  to  the  verge  of  publication,  without 
one  act  of  assistance,  one  word  of  encourage- 
ment, or  one  smile  of  favour.  Such  treatment 
I  did  not  expect,  for  I  never  had  a  patron  before. 

"The  shepherd  in  Virgil  grew  at  last  ac- 
quainted with  Love,  and  found  him  a  native  of 
the  rocks. 

' '  Is  not  a  patron,  my  lord,  one  who  looks  with 
unconcern  on  a  man  struggling  for  life  in  the 
water,  and,  when  he  has  reached  ground,  encum- 
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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

bers  him  with  help  ?  The  notice  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  take  of  my  labours,  had  it  been 
early,  had  been  kind,  but  it  has  been  delayed  till 
I  am  indifferent  and  cannot  enjoy  it;  till  I  am 
solitary,  and  cannot  impart  it;  till  I  am  known, 
and  do  not  want  it.  I  hope  it  is  no  very  cynical 
asperity  not  to  confess  obligations  where  no 
benefit  has  been  received,  or  to  be  unwilling  that 
the  public  should  consider  me  as  owing  that  to  a 
patron  which  Providence  has  enabled  me  to  do 
for  myself. 

' '  Having  carried  on  my  work  thus  far  with  so 
little  obligation  to  any  favourer  of  learning,  I 
shall  not  be  disappointed  though  I  should  con- 
clude it,  if  less  be  possible,  with  less ;  for  I  have 
been  wakened  from  that  dream  of  hope,  in  which 
I  once  boasted  myself  with  so  much  exultation, 
my  lord, — your  lordship's  most  humble,  most 
obedient  servant.  SAM.  JOHNSON.  " 

Boswell's  life  of  Dr.  Johnson  when  you  come 
to  read  it,  as  you  will  be  sure  to  do  by  and  by, 
has  left  a  living  picture  of  this  great  and  good 
man  for  all  future  generations  to  enjoy,  ex- 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

tenuating  nothing  of  his  quaintness,  direct- 
ness, and  proneness  to  contradiction  for  its 
own  sake,  yet  unveiling  everywhere  the  deep 
piety  and  fine  magnanimity  of  his  character. 
He  suffered  much,  but  never  complained, 
and  certainly  must  be  numbered  among  the 
great  men  of  letters  who  have  found  true 
consolation  and  support  in  every  circumstance 
of  life  in  an  earnest  and  fervent  faith. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


69 


12 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Edmund  Burke  was  born  in  1730,  and  there- 
fore was  twenty-one  years  younger  than  Dr. 
Johnson,  and  he  survived  him  thirteen  years. 
He  was  a  great  prose  writer,  and  although 
some  of  his  speeches  in  Parliament  that  have 
come  down  to  us  possess  every  quality  of  solid 
argument  and  lofty  eloquence,  there  must 
have  been  something  lacking  in  his  delivery 
and  voice,  for  he  so  frequently  failed  to  rivet 
the  attention  of  the  House,  and  so  often 
addressed  a  steadily  dwindling  audience,  that 
the  wits  christened  him  "the  dinner  bell." 

All  men  of  letters,  however,  acknowledge 
Burke  as  a  true  master  of  a  very  great 
style. 

We  see  in  him  the  first  signs  of  a  breaking 
away  from  the  universal  restraint  of  the  older 

70 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

writers,  and  of  the  surging  up  of  expressed 

emotion. 
His  splendid  tribute  to  Marie  Antoinette 

and  his  panegyric  of  the  lost  age  of  chivalry 

are  familiar  to  all  students  of  English  prose. 

"It  is  now  (1791)  sixteen  or  seventeen  years 
since  I  saw  the  Queen  of  France,  then  the 
Dauphiness,  at  Versailles;  and  surely  never 
lighted  on  this  orb,  which  she  hardly  seemed  to 
touch,  a  more  delightful  vision.  I  saw  her  just 
above  the  horizon,  decorating  and  cheering  the 
elevated  sphere  she  just  began  to  move  in — 
glittering  like  the  morning  star,  full  of  life,  and 
splendour,  and  joy.  Oh!  what  a  revolution! 
and  what  a  heart  must  I  have,  to  contemplate 
without  emotion  that  elevation  and  that  fall! 
Little  did  I  dream  when  she  added  titles  of  ven- 
eration to  those  of  enthusiastic,  distant,  respect- 
ful love,  that  she  should  ever  be  obliged  to  carry 
the  sharp  antidote  against  disgrace  concealed  in 
that  bosom ;  little  did  I  dream  that  I  should  have 
lived  to  see  such  disasters  fallen  upon  her  in  a 
nation  of  gallant  men,  in  a  nation  of  men  of 
honour  and  of  cavaliers.  I  thought  ten  thou- 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

sand  swords  must  have  leaped  from  their  scab- 
bards to  avenge  even  a  look  that  threatened  her 
with  insult.  But  the  age  of  chivalry  has  gone. 
That  of  sophisters,  economists,  and  calculators 
has  succeeded;  and  the  glory  of  Europe  is  extin- 
guished for  ever. 

"Never,  never  more,  shall  we  behold  that 
generous  loyalty  to  sex  and  rank,  that  proud 
submission,  that  dignified  obedience,  that  sub- 
ordination of  the  heart,  which  kept  alive,  even 
in  servitude  itself,  the  spirit  of  an  exalted  free- 
dom. The  unbought  grace  of  life,  the  cheap 
defence  of  nations,  the  nurse  of  manly  sentiment 
and  heroic  enterprise  is  gone ! 

"It  is  gone,  that  sensibility  of  principle,  that 
chastity  of  honour,  which  felt  a  stain  like  a 
wound;  which  inspired  courage  while  it  miti- 
gated ferocity;  which  ennobled  whatever  it 
touched,  and  under  which  vice  itself  lost  half  its 
evil,  by  losing  all  its  grossness. " 

This  is  a  splendid  and  world-famous  passage 
well  worth  committing  to  memory. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 
72 


13 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Edward  Gibbon,  who  wrote  the  Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  belonged  to  the 
later  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  was  a 
contemporary  of  Dr.  Johnson  and  Burke.  He 
finished  his  great  history  three  years  after 
Dr.  Johnson's  death.  It  is  a  monumental 
work,  and  will  live  as  long  as  the  English 
language.  It  is  one  of  the  books  which  every 
cultivated  gentleman  should  read.  The  style 
is  stately  and  sonorous,  and  the  industry  and 
erudition  involved  in  its  production  must  have 
been  immense. 

Although  it  never  sinks  below  a  noble 
elevation  of  style,  it  nevertheless  displays  no 
uplifting  flights  of  eloquence  or  declamation, 
and  to  me,  and  probably  to  you,  Antony,  the 
most  moving  passages  in  Gibbon's  writings  are 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

those  that  describe  with  unaffected  emotion 
the  moment  of  the  first  resolve  to  compose  the 
great  history  and  the  night  when  he  wrote  the 
last  line  of  it.  On  page  129  of  his  memoirs1 
he  wrote : — 

' '  It  was  at  Rome  on  the  1 5th  of  October,  1 764, 
as  I  sat  musing  amidst  the  ruins  of  the  Capitol, 
while  the  bare-footed  f ryars  were  singing  vespers 
in  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  that  the  idea  of  writing 
the  decline  and  fall  of  the  city  first  started  to 
my  mind." 

Thus  did  he  resolve  to  devote  himself  to  the 
tremendous  task,  and  at  Lausanne  twenty- 
three  years  later  it  was  at  last  fulfilled.  He 
recorded  the  event  in  a  few  pregnant  sentences 
that  are  strangely  memorable : — 

' '  It  was  on  the  day,  or  rather  night,  of  the  27th 
of  June,  1787,  between  the  hours  of  eleven  and 
twelve,  that  I  wrote  the  last  lines  of  the  last 
page,  in  a  summer-house  in  my  garden.  After 

1  First  edition,  1794. 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

laying  down  my  pen  I  took  several  turns  in  a 
berceau,  or  covered  walk  of  acacias,  which  com- 
mands a  prospect  of  the  country,  the  lake,  and 
the  mountains.  The  air  was  temperate,  the  sky 
was  serene,  the  silver  orb  of  the  moon  was  re- 
flected from  the  waters,  and  all  nature  was  silent. 
I  will  not  dissemble  the  first  emotions  of  joy  on 
the  recovery  of  my  freedom,  and  perhaps,  the 
establishment  of  my  fame.  But  my  pride  was 
soon  humbled,  and  a  sober  melancholy  was 
spread  over  my  mind,  by  the  idea  that  I  had 
taken  an  everlasting  leave  of  an  old  and  agree- 
able companion,  and  that,  whatsoever  might  be 
the  future  fate  of  my  History,  the  life  of  the 
historian  must  be  short  and  precarious. " 

In  June,  1888,  just  one  hundred  and  one 
years  after  that  pen  had  been  finally  laid  aside, 
I  searched  in  Lausanne  for  the  summer-house 
and  covered  walk,  and  could  find  no  very  au- 
thentic record  of  its  site.  I  brought  home  a 
flower  from  the  garden  where  it  seemed  prob- 
able the  summer-house  had  once  existed, 
behind  the  modern  hotel  built  there  in  the 

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intervening  time,   and  laid  it   between    the 
leaves  of  my  Gibbon. 

The  pressed  flower  was  still  there  when  I 
last  took  the  book  down  from  my  shelves. 

I  hope  my  successors  will  preserve  the  little 
token  of  my  reverence. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


14 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Some  of  the  most  eloquent  orators  in  the 
world  have  been  Irishmen,  and  among  them 
Henry  Grattan  was  supreme. 

The  Irish  Parliament  in  the  later  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century  frequently  sat  spell-bound 
under  the  magic  of  his  voice. 

In  1782,  at  the  age  of  thirty -two,  he 
achieved  by  his  amazing  eloquence  a  great 
National  Revolution  in  Ireland.  But  eight- 
een years  later  all  that  he  had  fought  for 
and  achieved  was  lost  in  the  Act  of  Union.  In 
these  days  I  suppose  few  will  be  found  to  de- 
fend the  means  whereby  that  Act  was  passed ; 
but  the  public  assertions  that  the  people  of 
Ireland  were  in  favour  of  it  wrung  from 
Grattan  the  following  cry  of  indignation  and 
wrath : — 

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"To  affirm  that  the  judgment  of  a  nation  is 
erroneous  may  mortify,  but  to  affirm  that  her 
judgment  against  is  for;  to  assert  that  she  has 
said  ay  when  she  has  pronounced  no;  to  affect  to 
refer  a  great  question  to  the  people ;  finding  the 
sense  of  the  people,  like  that  of  the  parliament, 
against  the  question,  to  force  the  question;  to 
affirm  the  sense  of  the  people  to  be  for  the  ques- 
tion; to  affirm  that  the  question  is  persisted  in, 
because  the  sense  of  the  people  is  for  it ;  to  make 
the  falsification  of  the  country's  sentiments  the 
foundation  of  her  ruin,  and  the  ground  of  the 
Union ;  to  affirm  that  her  parliament ,  constitution , 
liberty,  honour,  property,  are  taken  away  by  her 
own  authority, — there  is,  in  such  artifice,  an 
effrontery,  a  hardihood,  an  insensibility,  that 
can  best  be  answered  by  sensations  of  astonish- 
ment and  disgust,  excited  on  this  occasion  by  the 
British  minister,  whether  he  speaks  in  gross  and 
total  ignorance  of  the  truth,  or  in  shameless  and 
supreme  contempt  for  it. 

"The  constitution  may  be  for  a  time  so  lost; 
the  character  of  the  country  cannot  be  so  lost. 
The  ministers  of  the  Crown  will,  or  may,  per- 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

haps,  at  length  find  that  it  is  not  so  easy  to  put 
down  for  ever  an  ancient  and  respectable  nation, 
by  abilities,  however  great,  and  by  power  and 
by  corruption,  however  irresistible;  liberty  may 
repair  her  golden  beams,  and  with  redoubled 
heat  animate  the  country ;  the  cry  of  loyalty  will 
not  long  continue  against  the  principles  of  lib- 
erty; loyalty  is  a  noble,  a  judicious,  and  a  capa- 
cious principle;  but  in  these  countries  loyalty, 
distinct  from  liberty,  is  corruption,  not  loyalty. 

"The  cry  of  the  connexion  will  not,  in  the 
end,  avail  against  the  principles  of  liberty. 
Connexion  is  a  wise  and  a  profound  policy;  but 
connexion  without  an  Irish  Parliament  is  con- 
nexion without  its  own  principle,  without 
analogy  of  condition;  without  the  pride  of 
honour  that  should  attend  it;  is  innovation,  is 
peril,  is  subjugation — not  connexion. 

"The  cry  of  the  connexion  will  not,  in  the 
end,  avail  against  the  principle  of  liberty. 

' '  Identification  is  a  solid  and  imperial  maxim, 

necessary  for  the  preservation  of  freedom,  nec- 

ecessary  for  that  of  empire ;  but,  without  union 

of  hearts — with  a  separate  government,   and 

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without  a  separate  parliament,  identification  is 
extinction,  is  dishonour,  is  conquest — not  identi- 
fication. 

"Yet  I  do  not  give  up  the  country — I  see  her 
in  a  swoon,  but  she  is  not  dead — though  in  her 
tomb  she  lies  helpless  and  motionless,  still  there 
is  on  her  lips  a  spirit  of  life,  and  on  her  cheeks  a 
glow  of  beauty — 

"Thou  art  not  conquered;  beauty's  ensign  yet 
Is  crimson  in  thy  lips,  and  in  thy  cheeks, 
And  death's  pale  flag  is  not  advanced  there." 

"While  a  plank  of  the  vessel  sticks  together, 
I  will  not  leave  her.  Let  the  courtier  present 
his  flimsy  sail,  and  carry  the  light  bark  of  his 
faith,  with  every  new  breath  of  wind — I  will 
remain  anchored  here — with  fidelity  to  the 
fortunes  of  my  country,  faithful  to  her  freedom, 
faithful  to  her  fall. " 

Of  another  character,  but  not  less  admirable 
than  his  eloquence  in  the  Senate,  was  Grat- 
tan's  achievement  with  the  pen.  His  descrip- 
tion of  the  great  Lord  Chatham  lives  as  one 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

of  the  most  noble  panegyrics — if  not  the  most 
noble — in  the  world.  No  writer,  before  or 
since,  has  offered  anyone  such  splendid  hom- 
age as  this — that  he  never  sunk  "to  the  vulgar 
level  of  the  great." 

' '  The  Secretary  stood  alone.  Modern  degen- 
eracy had  not  reached  him.  Original  and  unac- 
commodating, the  features  of  his  character  had 

I 

the  hardihood  of  antiquity,  his  august  mind 
overawed  majesty,  and  one  of  his  sovereigns 
thought  royalty  so  impaired  in  his  presence  that 
he  conspired  to  remove  him,  in  order  to  be 
relieved  from  his  superiority.  No  state  chi- 
canery, no  narrow  systems  of  vicious  politics,  no 
idle  contest  for  ministerial  victories  sunk  him  to 
the  vulgar  level  of  the  great;  but,  overbearing, 
persuasive,  and  impracticable,  his  object  was 
England, — his  ambition  was  fame;  without 
dividing,  he  destroyed  party;  without  corrupt- 
ing, he  made  a  venal  age  unanimous;  France 
sunk  beneath  him;  with  one  hand  he  smote  the 
House  of  Bourbon,  and  wielded  in  the  other  the 
democracy  of  England.  The  sight  of  his  mind 

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was  infinite,  and  his  schemes  were  to  affect,  not 
England,  not  the  present  age  only,  but  Europe 
and  posterity.  Wonderful  were  the  means  by 
which  these  schemes  were  accomplished,  always 
seasonable,  always  adequate,  the  suggestions  of 
an  understanding  animated  by  ardour,  and 
enlightened  by  prophecy. 

"The  ordinary  feelings  which  make  life  ami- 
able and  indolent — those  sensations  which 
soften,  and  allure,  and  vulgarise — were  unknown 
to  him;  no  domestic  difficulties,  no  domestic 
weakness  reached  him ;  but,  aloof  from  the  sordid 
occurrences  of  life,  and  unsullied  by  its  inter- 
course, he  came  occasionally  into  our  system  to 
counsel  and  decide. 

"A  character  so  exalted,  so  strenuous,  so  vari- 
ous, so  authoritative,  astonished  a  corrupt  age, 
and  the  Treasury  trembled  at  the  name  of  Pitt 
through  all  her  classes  of  venality.  Corruption  im- 
agined, indeed,  that  she  had  found  defects  in  this 
statesman,  and  talked  much  of  the  inconsistency 
of  his  glory,  and  much  of  the  ruin  of  his  victories 
— but  the  history  of  his  country,  and  the  calami- 
ties of  the  enemy,  answered  and  refuted  her. 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"Nor  were  his  political  abilities  his  only 
talents;  his  eloquence  was  an  era  in  the  senate, 
peculiar  and  spontaneous,  familiarly  expressing 
gigantic  sentiments  and  instinctive  wisdom — 
not  like  the  torrent  of  Demosthenes,  or  the 
splendid  conflagration  of  Tully;  it  resembled 
sometimes  the  thunder,  and  sometimes  the 
music  of  the  spheres.  Like  Murray,  he  did  not 
conduct  the  understanding  through  the  painful 
subtilty  of  argumentation;  nor  was  he,  like 
Townshend,  for  ever  on  the  rack  of  exertion,  but 
rather  lightened  upon  the  subject,  and  reached 
the  point  by  the  flashings  of  his  mind,  which, 
like  those  of  his  eye,  were  felt,  but  could  not  be 
followed. 

"Yet  he  was  not  always  correct  or  polished; 
on  the  contrary,  he  was  sometimes  ungrammati- 
cal,  negligent,  and  unenforcing,  for  he  concealed 
his  art,  and  was  superior  to  the  knack  of  oratory. 
Upon  many  occasions  he  abated  the  vigour  of  his 
eloquence,  but  even  then,  like  the  spinning  of  a 
cannon  ball,  he  was  still  alive  with  fatal,  un- 
approachable activity. 

"Upon  the  whole,  there  was  in  this  man 
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something  that  could  create,  subvert,  or  reform; 
an  understanding,  a  spirit,  and  an  eloquence  to 
summon  mankind  to  society,  or  to  break  the 
bonds  of  slavery  asunder,  and  rule  the  wildness 
of  free  minds  with  unbounded  authority ;  some- 
thing that  could  establish  or  overwhelm  empire, 
and  strike  a  blow  in  the  world  that  should 
resound  through  its  history. " 

Grattan  died  in  1820,  and  twenty  years 
later,  in  1844,  another  great  English  writer, 
Lord  Macaulay,  wrote  a  world-famous  passage 
upon  the  great  Lord  Chatham  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review: — 

"Chatham  sleeps  near  the  northern  door  of 
the  church,  in  a  spot  which  has  ever  since  been 
appropriated  to  statesmen,  as  the  other  end  of 
the  same  transept  has  long  been  to  poets.  Mans- 
field rests  there,  and  the  second  William  Pitt, 
and  Fox,  and  Grattan,  and  Canning,  and  Wilber- 
force.  In  no  other  cemetery  do  so  many  great 
citizens  lie  within  so  narrow  a  space.  High  over 
those  venerable  graves  towers  the  stately  monu- 
ment of  Chatham,  and,  from  above,  his  effigy, 
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graven  by  a  cunning  hand,  seems  still,  with  eagle 
face  and  outstretched  arm,  to  bid  England  be  of 
good  cheer,  and  to  hurl  defiance  at  her  foes. 

"The  generation  which  reared  that  memorial 
of  him  has  disappeared.  The  time  has  come 
when  the  rash  and  indiscriminate  judgments 
which  his  contemporaries  passed  on  his  character 
may  be  calmly  revised  by  history.  And  history, 
while,  for  the  warning  of  vehement,  high,  and 
daring  natures,  she  notes  his  many  errors,  will 
yet  deliberately  pronounce  that,  among  the 
eminent  men  whose  bones  lie  near  his,  scarcely 
one  has  left  a  more  stainless  and  none  a  more 
splendid  name." 

It  is  a  great  race,  Antony,  that  can  produce 
a  man  of  such  a  character  as  Chatham,  and 
also  writers  who  can  dedicate  to  him  such 
superb  tributes  as  these. 

Macaulay's  prose  has  been  much  criticised 
as  being  too  near  to  easy  journalism  to  be 
classed  among  the  great  classic  passages  of 
English ;  but  this  much  must  be  recognised  to 
his  great  credit — he  never  wrote  an  obscure 

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sentence  or  an  ambiguous  phrase,  and  his 
works  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  a  foreign 
idiom  or  even  a  foreign  word.  He  possessed 
an  infallible  memory,  absolute  perspicuity, 
and  a  scholarly  taste.  He  detested  oppression 
wherever  enforced,  and  never  exercised  his 
great  powers  in  the  defence  of  mean  politics 
or  unworthy  practices. 

Such  a  writer  to-day  would  blow  a  whole- 
some wind  across  the  tainted  pools  of  political 
intrigue. 

We  can  salute  him,  Antony,  as  a  fine,  manly, 
clean  writer,  who  was  an  honour  to  letters. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


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15 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Born  in  the  same  year  as  was  Grattan, 
namely,  in  1750,  Lord  Erskine  adorned  the 
profession  of  the  Bar  with  an  eloquence  that 
never  exhibited  the  slight  tendency  to  be 
ponderous  which  sometimes  was  displayed  by 
his  contemporaries. 

Grace  and  refinement  shine  out  in  every  one 
of  his  great  speeches. 

He  was  a  young  scion  of  the  great  house  of 
Buchan,  being  the  third  son  of  the  tenth  Earl. 
After  being  in  the  Navy  for  four  years  he  left 
it  for  the  Army,  and  six  years  later  he  went  to 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  took  his 
degree ;  thence  he  came  to  the  Bar  in  1778,  and 
at  once  displayed  the  most  conspicuous  ability 
as  an  advocate. 

He  appeared  for  Home  Tooke  in  a  six-day 
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trial  for  high  treason,  which  ended  in  an 
acquittal. 

In  1806  he  became  Lord  Chancellor  and  a 
peer. 

I  quote  an  indignant  warning  to  the  aristo- 
cracy of  England  which  flamed  forth  in  one 
of  his  great  speeches : — 

"Let  the  aristocracy  of  England,  which 
trembles  so  much  for  itself,  take  heed  to  its  own 
security;  let  the  nobles  of  England,  if  they  mean 
to  preserve  that  pre-eminence  which,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  must  exist  in  every  social  com- 
munity, take  care  to  support  it  by  aiming  at 
that  which  is  creative,  and  alone  creative,  of 
real  superiority.  Instead  of  matching  them- 
selves to  supply  wealth,  to  be  again  idly  squan- 
dered in  debauching  excesses,  or  to  round  the 
quarters  of  a  family  shield ;  instead  of  continuing 
their  names  and  honours  in  cold  and  alienated 
embraces,  amidst  the  enervating  rounds  of 
shallow  dissipation,  let  them  live  as  their  fathers 
of  old  lived  before  them;  let  them  marry  as 
affection  and  prudence  lead  the  way,  and,  in  the 
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ardours  of  mutual  love,  and  in  the  simplicities 
of  rural  life,  let  them  lay  the  foundation  of  a 
vigorous  race  of  men,  firm  in  their  bodies,  and 
moral  from  early  habits;  and,  instead  of  wasting 
their  fortunes  and  their  strength  in  the  tasteless 
circles  of  debauchery,  let  them  light  up  their 
magnificent  and  hospital  halls  to  the  gentry  and 
peasantry  of  the  country,  extending  the  consola- 
tions of  wealth  and  influence  to  the  poor.  Let 
them  but  do  this, — and  instead  of  those  dangerous 
and  distracted  divisions  between  the  different 
ranks  of  life,  and  those  jealousies  of  the  multi- 
tude so  often  blindly  painted  as  big  with  de- 
struction, we  should  see  our  country  as  one  large 
and  harmonious  family,  which  can  never  be 
accomplished  amidst  vice  and  corruption,  by 
wars  and  treaties,  by  informations,  ex  officio  for 
libels,  or  by  any  of  the  tricks  and  artifices  of  the 
State." 

Mr.  Erskine  was  entitled,  as  the  son  of  the 
tenth  Earl  of  Buchan,  to  speak  such  words 
of  warning  and  exhortation  to  the  aristocracy 
of  England  to  which  he  belonged,  and  the  lapse 

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of  a  century  and  a  quarter  has  not  rendered 
the  exhortation  vain,  though  it  may  be  hoped 
that  the  condemnatory  clauses  of  the  speech 
would  not  at  the  present  time  be  so  well 
justified  as  when  they  were  delivered. 

Great  names  carry  great  obligations,  and, 
for  the  most  part,  those  who  bear  them  to-day 
recognise  those  great  obligations  and  en- 
deavour without  ostentation  to  fulfil  them. 

The  silly  fribbles  who  posture  before  the 
photographic  cameras  for  penny  newspapers 
do  not  represent  the  real  aristocracy  of 
England. 

We  must  not,  Antony,  mistake  a  cockatoo 
for  an  eagle. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


16 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  shall  not  expect  you  in  your  reading  often 
to  penetrate  into  the  innumerable  dusty  octa- 
vos that  contain  sermons.  The  stoutest  heart 
may  fail,  without  blame,  before  the  flat-footed 
pedestrianism  of  these  platitudinous  volumes. 
But  there  does  occasionally  arise  above  the 
dull  horizon  a  star  whose  brilliance  is  the  more 
conspicuous  for  the  surrounding  gloom. 

In  1796,  Coleridge,  in  a  letter1  to  a  Mr. 
Flower,  who  was  a  publisher  at  Cambridge, 
wrote : — 

' '  I  hope  Robert  Hall  is  well.  Why  is  he  idle  ? 
I  mean  towards  the  public.  We  want  such  men 
to  rescue  this  enlightened  age  from  general  irre- 
ligion. " 

1  Now  in  my  library. — S.  C. 

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I  suppose  Robert  Hall  is  a  name  known  to 
but  few  in  these  days,  but  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
centuries  his  fame  was  great  and  deserved. 

As  a  divine,  dowered  with  the  gift  of  inspired 
eloquence,  Coleridge  estimated  his  powers  as 
second  only  to  those  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  When 
Napoleon  was  at  the  supreme  height  of  his 
conquests,  and  England  alone  of  European 
countries  still  stood  erect,  uninvaded  and 
undismayed,  a  company  of  soldiers  attended 
Robert  Hall's  place  of  worship  on  the  eve  of 
their  departure  to  Spain.  The  occasion  was 
memorable  and  moving,  and  the  preacher's 
splendid  periods  deserve  to  be  preserved  from 
oblivion : — 

"By  a  series  of  criminal  enterprises,  by  the 
successes  of  guilty  ambition,  the  liberties  of 
Europe  have  been  gradually  extinguished;  the 
subjugation  of  Holland,  Switzerland,  and  the 
free  towns  of  Germany,  has  completed  that 
catastrophe;  and  we  are  the  only  people  in  the 
Eastern  Hemisphere  who  are  in  possession  of 
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equal  laws  and  a  free  constitution.  Freedom, 
driven  from  every  spot  on  the  Continent,  has 
sought  an  asylum  in  a  country  which  she  always 
chose  for  her  favorite  abode ;  but  she  is  pursued 
even  here,  and  threatened  with  destruction. 
The  inundations  of  lawless  power,  after  covering 
the  whole  earth,  threaten  to  follow  us  here,  and 
we  are  most  exactly,  most  critically  placed  in  the 
only  aperture  where  it  can  be  successfully 
repelled,  in  the  Thermopylae  of  the  universe. 

"As  far  as  the  interests  of  freedom  are  con- 
cerned, the  most  important  by  far  of  sublunary 
interests,  you,  my  countrymen,  stand  in  the 
capacity  of  the  federal  representatives  of  the 
human  race;  for  with  you  it  is  to  determine 
(under  God)  in  what  condition  the  latest  poster- 
ity shall  be  born ;  their  fortunes  are  entrusted  to 
your  care,  and  on  your  conduct  at  this  moment 
depends  the  colour  and  complexion  of  their  des- 
tiny. If  liberty,  after  being  extinguished  on  the 
Continent,  is  suffered  to  expire  here,  whence  is 
it  ever  to  emerge  in  the  midst  of  that  thick  night 
that  will  invest  it? 

"It  remains  with  you,  then,  to  decide  whether 
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that  freedom,  at  whose  voice  the  kingdoms  of 
Europe  awoke  from  the  sleep  of  ages  to  run  a 
career  of  virtuous  emulation  in  everything  great 
and  good ;  the  freedom  which  dispelled  the  mists 
of  superstition  and  invited  the  nations  to  behold 
their  God;  whose  magic  touch  kindled  the  rays 
of  genius,  the  enthusiasm  of  poetry,  and  the 
flame  of  eloquence;  the  freedom  which  poured 
into  our  lap  opulence  and  arts,  and  embellished 
life  with  innumerable  institutions  and  improve- 
ments till  it  became  a  theatre  of  wonders;  it  is 
for  you  to  decide  whether  this  freedom  shall  yet 
survive,  or  be  covered  with  a  funeral  pall,  and 
wrapt  in  eternal  gloom. 

"It  is  not  necessary  to  await  your  determina- 
tion. In  the  solicitude  you  feel  to  approve 
yourselves  worthy  of  such  a  trust,  every  thought 
of  what  is  afflicting  in  warfare,  every  apprehen- 
sion of  danger,  must  vanish,  and  you  are  im- 
patient to  mingle  in  the  battle  of  the  civilised 
world. 

"Go  then,  ye  defenders  of  your  country, 
accompanied  with  every  auspicious  omen;  ad- 
vance with  alacrity  into  the  field,  where  God 
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Himself  musters  the  hosts  of  war.  Religion  is 
too  much  interested  in  your  success  not  to  lend 
you  her  aid ;  she  will  shed  over  this  enterprise  her 
selectest  influences.  While  you  are  engaged  in 
the  field  many  will  repair  to  the  closet,  many  to 
the  sanctuary;  the  faithful  of  every  name  will 
employ  that  prayer  which  has  power  with  God ; 
the  feeble  hands  which  are  unequal  to  any  other 
weapon  will  grasp  the  sword  of  the  Spirit ;  from 
myriads  of  humble,  contrite  hearts,  the  voice  of 
intercession,  supplication,  and  weeping,  will 
mingle  in  its  ascent  to  heaven  with  the  shouts  of 
battle  and  the  shock  of  arms. 

"While  you  have  everything  to  fear  from  the 
success  of  the  enemy,  you  have  every  means  of 
preventing  that  success,  so  that  it  is  next  to 
impossible  for  victory  not  to  crown  your  exer- 
tions. The  extent  of  your  resources,  under 
God,  is  equal  to  the  justice  of  your  cause. 

"But  should  Providence  determine  otherwise; 
should  you  fall  in  this  struggle,  should  the 
nation  fall,  you  will  have  the  satisfaction  (the 
purest  allotted  to  man)  of  having  performed 
your  part ;  your  names  will  be  enrolled  with  the 
95 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

most  illustrious  dead,  while  posterity  to  the  end 
of  time,  as  often  as  they  revolve  the  events  of 
this  period  (and  they  will  incessantly  revolve 
them)  will  turn  to  you  a  reverential  eye  while 
they  mourn  over  the  freedom  which  is  entombed 
in  your  sepulchre. 

"I  cannot  but  imagine  the  virtuous  heroes, 
legislators,  and  patriots,  of  every  age  and  coun- 
try, are  bending  from  their  elevated  seats  to 
witness  this  contest,  as  if  they  were  incapable, 
till  it  be  brought  to  a  favourable  issue,  of  enjoy- 
ing their  eternal  repose. 

"Enjoy  that  repose,  illustrious  immortals! 
Your  mantle  fell  when  you  ascended,  and  thou- 
sands inflamed  with  your  spirit,  and  impatient 
to  tread  in  your  steps,  are  ready  'to  swear  by 
Him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne  and  liveth  for 
ever  and  ever,'  they  will  protect  freedom  in  her 
last  asylums,  and  never  desert  that  cause  which 
you  sustained  by  your  labours  and  cemented 
with  your  blood. 

"And  Thou,  Sole  Ruler  among  the  children 
of  men,  to  whom  the  shields  of  the  earth  belong, 
'gird  on  Thy  sword,  Thou  most  Mighty';  go 
96 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

forth  with  our  hosts  in  the  day  of  battle !  Impart, 
in  addition  to  their  hereditary  valour,  that  con- 
fidence of  success  which  springs  from  Thy  Pres- 
ence! 

' '  Pour  into  their  hearts  the  spirit  of  departed 
heroes!  Inspire  them  with  Thine  own,  and, 
while  led  by  Thine  Hand  and  fighting  under  Thy 
banners,  open  Thou  their  eyes  to  behold  in  every 
valley  and  in  every  plain,  what  the  prophet 
beheld  by  the  same  illuminations — chariots  of 
fire,  and  horses  of  fire ! 

"Then  shall  the  strong  man  be  as  tow,  and  the 
maker  of  it  as  a  spark ;  and  they  shall  both  burn 
together,  and  none  shall  quench  them. " 

We,  who  have  just  emerged,  shattered  in- 
deed and  reeling,  from  another  and  yet  more 
awful  combat  for  freedom,  can  the  better 
extend  our  sympathy  to  those  forefathers  of 
ours  situated  in  like  case,  and  can  imagine 
with  what  beating  hearts  they  must  have 
listened  to  so  magnificent  a  call  to  arms  as 
this;  commingling  prayer,  exhortation,  and 
benediction. 

7  97 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

Napoleon,  after  all,  waged  his  wars  with  us 
according  to  the  laws  of  nations,  the  rules  of 
civilised  peoples,  and  the  dictates  of  decent 
humanity.  But  never  since  Christianity  has 
been  established  has  one  man  committed  so 
dread  and  awful  an  accumulation  of  public 
iniquities  as  stand  for  ever  against  the  base 
and  cowardly  name  of  William  Hohenzollern, 
Emperor  in  Germany.  He  spat  upon  the 
ancient  chivalries  of  battle;  he  prostituted 
the  decent  amenities  of  diplomacy;  he  pol- 
luted with  infamy  and  murder  the  splendid 
comradeship  of  the  sea. 

When  the  captain  of  one  of  his  submarines 
placed  upon  his  deck  the  captured  crew  of  an 
unarmed  merchant  vessel  which  he  had  sunk, 
destroyed  their  boats,  took  from  them  their 
life-belts,  carried  them  miles  away  from  any 
floating  wreckage,  and  then  projected  them 
into  the  sea  to  drown,  this  unspeakable 
monarch  approved  the  awful  deed  and  decor- 
ated the  ruffian  for  his  infamous  cruelty. 

When  gallant  Fryatt,  fulfilling  every  duty 
98 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

a  captain  owes  to  his  unarmed  crew  and 
helpless  passengers,  turned  the  bows  of  his 
peaceful  packet-boat  upon  the  submarine 
which  was  being  used  to  murder  them  all  in 
cold  blood,  he  fell  into  this  Kaiser's  hands, 
and  the  coward  wreaked  his  vengeance  upon 
nobility  that  was  beyond  his  comprehension 
and  valour  that  rendered  him  insignificant. 

Of  these  horrible  acts  the  proofs  stand 
unchallenged,  and  for  such  deeds  as  these  the 
world  has  cast  him  out;  thrown  him  down 
from  one  of  the  greatest  thrones  in  history; 
and  left  him  in  the  place  to  which,  white  with 
terror,  he  ignominiously  fled,  stripped  of  all  his 
power  and  splendour,  his  crowns,  his  crosses, 
and  his  diadems. 

Idle  is  it  for  this  man  and  his  apologists  to 
plead  any  extenuation  or  excuse. 

It  was  his  custom  in  the  plenitude  of  his 
power  to  declare  himself  answerable  for  his 
actions  only  to  God  and  himself.  Then  let 
the  judgment  of  God  be  upon  him.  When  we 
recall  the  awful  and  unnumbered  horrors  with 

99 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

which  he  covered  Europe,  I  doubt  whether  all 
history  can  furnish  a  parallel  to  him. 

By  his  authority  helpless  Belgium  was 
invaded,  treaties  treacherously  broken,  and 
her  people  slaughtered.  By  his  authority 
her  priests  were  murdered  in  cold  blood  and 
her  nuns  violated  by  his  vile  soldiery.  By  his 
authority  poison  gases  were  first  projected 
with  low  cunning  upon  brave  and  honourable 
adversaries.  By  his  authority  hospital  ships 
at  sea  were  sent  to  the  bottom. 

But  time  and  the  might  of  free  nations  have, 
after  fearful  sufferings,  dissipated  his  invincible 
armies,  and  they  have  shrivelled  before  the 
wrath  of  mankind.  The  whole  world  rose  up 
in  its  offended  majesty  and  tore  from  him  that 
shining  armour  of  which  it  was  his  custom  to 
boast;  and,  with  the  brand  of  Cain  upon  him, 
he  now  lies  obscurely  in  Holland,  bereft  of  all 
the  trappings  of  his  sinister  power. 

There  were  times  in  the  past  when  justice 
would  have  avenged  such  awful  crimes  as  lie  at 
this  man's  door  with  the  torture  of  his  living 

100 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

body  and  the  desecration  of  his  lifeless  remains, 
but  his  conquerors  disdained  to  debase  them- 
selves by  imitating  his  own  abominations ;  and 
they  left  him  to  afford  a  spectacle  to  posterity 
as  the  supreme  example  of  human  ignominy ! 
When  you  are  old,  Antony,  and  this  greatest 
of  all  wars  has  become  part  of  England's 
history,  you  will  be  proud  and  happy  to 
remember  that  your  own  father,  at  the  first 
call  for  volunteers,  laid  down  the  pencil  and 
scale  of  his  peaceful  profession,  went  out  to 
fight  for  his  country  in  the  trenches  in  France, 
was  wounded  almost  to  death,  and  was  saved 
only  by  the  skill  and  devotion  of  one  of  the 
greatest  surgeons  of  the  day.1  All  the  best 
blood  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland  went 
marching  together  to  defend  the  freedom  of 
the  world,  and  upon  their  hearts  were  en- 
graven the  glorious  words : — 

"Blessed  be  the  Lord  my  strength,  which 
teacheth  my  hands  to  war  and  my  fingers  to 
fight." 

1  Sir  Arbuthnot  Lane. 

IOI 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

May  such  a  call  never  come  to  our  beloved 
country  again!  But  if  it  does,  Antony,  I 
know  where  you  will  be  found  without  need  of 
exhortations  from  me. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


102 


17 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Grattan,  of  whom  I  have  already  written, 
had  in  the  first  Lord  Plunket  a  successor  and 
a  compatriot  very  little  his  inferior  in  the  gift 
of  oratory. 

He  was  born  in  1764,  and  was  therefore 
some  fourteen  years  younger  than  Grattan, 
whom  he  survived  by  thirty-four  years. 

Like  Grattan,  he  displayed  a  burning 
patriotism  and,  like  him,  fiercely  opposed  the 
Act  of  Union. 

Few  orators  have  displayed  greater  powers 
of  clear  reason  and  convincing  logic  than 
Plunket.  It  may  be  admitted  that  he  seldom 
rose  to  great  heights  of  eloquence,  but  tradi- 
tion credits  his  delivery  with  a  quality  of 
dignity  amounting  almost  to  majesty.  The 
gift  of  oratory  consists  in  how  things  are  said 
as  much  as  in  what  things  are  said,  and  the 

103 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

voice,  gesture,  and  manner  of  Plunket  were 
commanding  and  magnificent. 

When  Attorney- General  in  Ireland,  in  1823, 
in  a  speech  prosecuting  the  leaders  of  the  riot 
known  as  "the  Bottle  Riot,"  Plunket  uttered 
the  following  fine  tribute  to  the  character  of 
William  the  Third:— 

"Perhaps,  my  lords,  there  is  not  to  be  found 
in  the  annals  of  history  a  character  more  truly 
great  than  that  of  William  the  Third.  Perhaps 
no  person  has  ever  appeared  on  the  theatre  of 
the  world  who  has  conferred  more  essential  or 
more  lasting  benefits  on  mankind;  on  these 
countries,  certainly  none.  When  I  look  at  the 
abstract  merits  of  his  character,  I  contemplate 
him  with  admiration  and  reverence.  Lord  of  a 
petty  principality — destitute  of  all  resources  but 
those  with  which  nature  had  endowed  him — 
regarded  with  jealousy  and  envy  by  those  whose 
battles  he  fought;  thwarted  in  all  his  counsels; 
embarrassed  in  all  his  movements;  deserted  in 
his  most  critical  enterprises — he  continued  to 
mould  all  those  discordant  materials,  to  govern 
104 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

all  these  warring  interests,  and  merely  by  the 
force  of  his  genius,  the  ascendancy  of  his  integ- 
rity, and  the  immovable  firmness  and  constancy 
of  his  nature,  to  combine  them  into  an  indissol- 
uble alliance  against  the  schemes  of  despotism 
and  universal  domination  of  the  most  powerful 
monarch  in  Europe,  seconded  by  the  ablest 
generals,  at  the  head  of  the  bravest  and  best 
disciplined  armies  in  the  world,  and  wielding, 
without  check  or  control,  the  unlimited  resources 
of  his  empire.  He  was  not  a  consummate  gen- 
eral; military  men  will  point  out  his  errors;  in 
that  respect  Fortune  did  not  favour  him,  save 
by  throwing  the  lustre  of  adversity  over  all  his 
virtues,  He  sustained  defeat  after  defeat,  but 
always  rose  adversa  rerum  immersabilis  unda. 
Looking  merely  at  his  shining  qualities  and 
achievements,  I  admire  him  as  I  do  a  Scipio,  a 
Regulus,  a  Fabius ;  a  model  of  tranquil  courage, 
undeviating  probity,  and  armed  with  a  resolute- 
ness and  constancy  in  the  cause  of  truth  and 
freedom,  which  rendered  him  superior  to  the 
accidents  that  control  the  fate  of  ordinary  men. 
"But  this  is  not  all — I  feel  that  to  him,  under 
105 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

God,  I  am,  at  this  moment,  indebted  for  the 
enjoyment  of  the  rights  which  I  possess  as  a 
subject  of  these  free  countries ;  to  him  I  owe  the 
blessings  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  I 
venerate  his  memory  with  a  fervour  of  devotion 
suited  to  his  illustrious  qualities  and  to  his  god- 
like acts." 

This  is  not  so  magnificent  a  panegyric  as 
that  of  Grattan  in  his  written  tribute  to  Chat- 
ham, but,  enhanced  by  the  gesture  and  voice 
of  the  great  orator,  it  was  reputed  to  have 
left  a  deep  impression  upon  all  who  heard  it. 

But  few  speeches,  however  eloquent,  sur- 
vive, while  the  printed  work  of  the  writer  may 
long  endure;  but  to  the  orator  is  given  what 
the  writer  never  experiences — the  fierce  enjoy- 
ment, amounting  almost  to  rapture,  of  holding 
an  audience  entranced  under  the  spell  of  the 
spoken  cadences ;  and  English,  Antony,  has  a 
splendour  all  its  own  when  uttered  by  a 
master  of  its  august  music. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 
106 


18 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

To-day  I  will  write  about  Robert  Southey, 
and,  as  he  and  Coleridge  married  sisters,  you 
may  claim  a  distant  relationship  with  him. 
His  personal  character  was  beautiful  and 
unselfish,  and  his  dwelling  at  Keswick  was  the 
home  that  for  years  sheltered  Coleridge's 
children. 

With  hardly  an  exception  the  poets  of  Eng- 
land have  had  an  easy  and  royal  mastery  of 
prose;  and  in  the  case  of  Robert  Southey 
there  are  some,  and  they  are  not  the  worst 
critics,  who  anticipate  that  his  prose  will  long 
outlast  his  poetry  in  the  Temple  of  Fame. 

We  may  suppose  that  to  a  man  whose  whole 
private  life  was  stainlessly  dedicated  to  a  noble 
rectitude  of  conduct,  and  whose  every  act  was 
sternly  subjected  to  the  judgment  of  an 
unbending  conscience,  some  circumstances  of 

107 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

the  private  life  of  Nelson  must  have  been  dis- 
tasteful and  open  to  censure;  but  no  such 
reservations  dimmed  the  splendour  of  Southey 's 
tribute  to  the  public  hero  who  gave  his  life  in 
the  act  of  establishing,  beyond  reach  of  dis- 
pute or  cavil,  the  throne  of  England  as  Queen 
of  the  Sea. 

"The  death  of  Nelson  was  felt  in  England  as 
something  more  than  a  public  calamity;  men 
started  at  the  intelligence,  and  turned  pale,  as 
if  they  had  heard  of  the  loss  of  a  dear  friend. 
An  object  of  our  admiration  and  affection,  of  our 
pride  and  of  our  hopes,  was  suddenly  taken  from 
us,  and  it  seemed  as  if  we  had  never,  till  then, 
known  how  deeply  we  loved  and  reverenced 
him. 

"What  the  country  had  lost  in  its  great  naval 
hero — the  greatest  of  our  own,  and  of  all  former 
times,  was  scarcely  taken  into  the  account  of 
grief.  So  perfectly,  indeed,  had  he  performed 
his  part,  that  the  maritime  war,  after  the  battle 
of  Trafalgar,  was  considered  at  an  end ;  the  fleets 
of  the  enemy  were  not  merely  defeated,  but 
1 08 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

destroyed;  new  navies  must  be  built,  and  a  new 
race  of  seamen  reared  for  them,  before  the  pos- 
sibility of  their  invading  our  shores  could  again 
be  contemplated. 

"It  was  not,  therefore,  from  any  selfish  reflec- 
tion upon  the  magnitude  of  our  loss  that  we 
mourned  for  him;  the  general  sorrow  was  of  a 
higher  character.  The  people  of  England  grieved 
that  funeral  ceremonies,  public  monuments  and 
posthumous  rewards,  were  all  which  they  could 
now  bestow  upon  him  whom  the  king,  the  legisla- 
ture, and  the  nation,  would  alike  have  delighted  to 
honour ;  whom  every  tongue  would  have  blessed ; 
whose  presence  in  every  village  through  which 
he  might  have  passed  would  have  wakened  the 
church  bells,  have  given  schoolboys  a  holiday, 
have  drawn  children  from  their  sports  to  gaze 
upon  him,  and  'old  men  from  the  chimney  cor- 
ner' to  look  upon  Nelson  ere  they  died. 

"The  victory  of  Trafalgar  was  celebrated, 
indeed,  with  the  usual  forms  of  rejoicing,  but 
they  were  without  joy;  for  such  already  was  the 
glory  of  the  British  Navy  through  Nelson's  sur- 
passing genius,  that  it  scarcely  seemed  to  receive 
109 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

any  addition  from  the  most  signal  victory  that 
ever  was  achieved  upon  the  sea;  and  the  de- 
struction of  this  mighty  fleet,  by  which  all  the 
maritime  schemes  of  France  were  totally  frus- 
trated, hardly  appeared  to  add  to  our  security 
or  strength,  for  while  Nelson  was  living  to  watch 
the  combined  squadrons  of  the  enemy,  we  felt 
ourselves  as  secure  as  now,  when  they  were  no 
longer  in  existence. 

"There  was  reason  to  suppose  from  the 
appearances  upon  opening  the  body,  that  in  the 
course  of  nature  he  might  have  attained,  like  his 
father,  to  a  good  old  age.  Yet  he  cannot  be  said 
to  have  fallen  prematurely  whose  work  was 
done ;  nor  ought  he  to  be  lamented,  who  died  so 
full  of  honours,  and  at  the  height  of  human  fame. 
The  most  triumphant  death  is  that  of  a  martyr ; 
the  most  awful,  that  of  the  martyred  patriot; 
the  most  splendid,  that  of  the  hero  in  the  hour 
of  victory ;  and  if  the  chariot  and  the  horses  of 
fire  had  been  vouchsafed  for  Nelson's  transla- 
tion, he  could  scarcely  have  departed  in  a 
brighter  blaze  of  glory. 

"He  has  left  us,  not  indeed  his  mantle  of 
no 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

inspiration,  but  a  name  and  an  example  which 
are  at  this  hour  inspiring  hundreds  of  the  youth 
of  England;  a  name  which  is  our  pride,  and  an 
example  which  will  continue  to  be  our  shield  and 
our  strength." 

Nelson  left  England  the  Queen  of  the  Sea, 
and  the  great  war  with  Germany  has  failed 
to  displace  her  from  that  splendid  throne. 
For  the  plain  fact  of  history  remains  that,  after 
the  battle  of  Jutland,  the  German  High  Seas 
Fleet  never  ventured  out  of  port  again  till  the 
end  of  the  war ;  and  when  it  did  emerge  from  its 
ignominious  security,  it  sailed  to  captivity  at 
Scapa  Flow,  there  ultimately  to  repose  on  the 
bottom  of  the  sea. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


in 


19 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

There  are  four  very  celebrated  lines  written 
by  Walter  Savage  Landor  which  you  may 
have  heard  quoted ;  they  were  written  towards 
the  close  of  his  life,  and  are  certainly  dis- 
tinguished and  memorable : — 

"I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife; 

Nature  I  loved,  and  next  to  Nature  Art ; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life; 
It  sinks,  and  I  am  ready  to  depart." 

It  does  not  detract  from  the  merit  of  the  lines 
that  as  a  fact  Landor  was  of  a  fiery  disposition, 
and  strove  a  great  deal  with  many  adversaries, 
often  of  his  own  creation,  throughout  his  long 
lif e ; l  and  although  he  was  of  a  fierce  and  com- 
bative nature  he  displayed  in  his  writings  a 
classical  restraint  and  tender  beauty  hardly 
achieved  by  his  contemporaries. 

'Born  1775,  died  1864. 

112 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

In  the  form  of  an  imaginary  conversation 
between  ^EsopandRhodope,  Landor  makes  the 
latter  describe  how  her  father,  in  the  famine, 
unbeknown  to  her,  starved  that  she  might 
have  plenty,  and,  when  all  was  gone,  took  her 
to  the  market-place  to  sell  her  that  she  might 
live.  There  is  an  exquisite  delicacy  in  this 
dialogue  that  places  it  among  the  wonders  of 
literature : — 

"Rhodope.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  morning 
when  my  father,  sitting  in  the  coolest  part  of  the 
house,  exchanged  his  last  measure  of  grain  for  a 
chlamys  of  scarlet  cloth,  fringed  with  silver. 
He  watched  the  merchant  out  of  the  door,  and 
then  looked  wistfully  into  the  cornchest.  I, 
who  thought  there  was  something  worth  seeing, 
looked  in  also,  and  rinding  it  empty,  expressed 
my  disappointment,  not  thinking,  however, 
about  the  corn.  A  faint  and  transient  smile 
came  over  his  countenance  at  the  sight  of  mine. 
He  unfolded  the  chlamys,  stretched  it  out  with 
both  hands  before  me,  and  then  cast  it  over  my 
shoulders.  I  looked  down  on  the  glittering  fringe 

8  113 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

and  screamed  with  joy.  He  then  went  out ;  and 
I  know  not  what  flowers  he  gathered,  but  he 
gathered  many;  and  some  he  placed  in  my 
bosom,  and  some  in  my  hair.  But  I  told  him 
with  captious  pride,  first  that  I  could  arrange 
them  better,  and  again  that  I  would  have  only 
the  white.  However,  when  he  had  selected  all 
the  white  and  I  had  placed  a  few  of  them  accord- 
ing to  my  fancy,  I  told  him  (rising  in  my  slipper) 
he  might  crown  me  with  the  remainder. 

"The  splendour  of  my  apparel  gave  me  a 
sensation  of  authority.  Soon  as  the  flowers  had 
taken  their  station  on  my  head,  I  expressed  a 
dignified  satisfaction  at  the  taste  displayed  by 
my  father,  just  as  if  I  could  have  seen  how  they 
appeared !  But  he  knew  that  there  was  at  least 
as  much  pleasure  as  pride  in  it,  and  perhaps  we 
divided  the  latter  (alas !  not  both)  pretty  equally. 

"He  now  took  me  into  the  market-place, 
where  a  concourse  of  people  were  waiting  for  the 
purchase  of  slaves.  Merchants  came  and  looked 
at  me;  some  commending,  others  disparaging; 
but  all  agreeing  that  I  was  slender  and  delicate, 
that  I  could  not  live  long,  and  that  I  should  give 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

much  trouble.  Many  would  have  bought  the 
chlamys,  but  there  was  something  less  saleable 
in  the  child  and  flowers. 

' '  Msop.  Had  thy  features  been  coarse  and  thy 
voice  rustic,  they  would  all  have  patted  thy 
cheeks  and  found  no  fault  in  thee. 

"Rhodope.  As  it  was,  every  one  had  bought 
exactly  such  another  in  time  past,  and  been 
a  loser  by  it.  At  these  speeches,  I  perceived  the 
flowers  tremble  slightly  on  my  bosom,  from  my 
father's  agitation.  Although  he  scoffed  at  them, 
knowing  my  healthiness,  he  was  troubled  inter- 
nally, and  said  many  short  prayers,  not  very 
unlike  imprecations,  turning  his  head  aside. 
Proud  was  I,  prouder  than  ever,  when  at  last 
several  talents  were  offered  for  me,  and  by  the 
very  man  who  in  the  beginning  had  undervalued 
me  most,  and  prophesied  the  worst  of  me. 
My  father  scowled  at  him  and  refused  the 
money.  I  thought  he  was  playing  a  game, 
and  began  to  wonder  what  it  could  be,  since 
I  had  never  seen  it  played  before.  Then  I 
fancied  it  might  be  some  celebration  because 
plenty  had  returned  to  the  city,  insomuch  that 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

my  father  had  bartered  the  last  of  the  corn  he 
hoarded. 

"I  grew  more  and  more  delighted  at  the  sport. 
But  soon  there  advanced  an  elderly  man,  who 
said  gravely,  'Thou  hast  stolen  this  child;  her 
vesture  alone  is  worth  a  hundred  drachmas. 
Carry  her  home  again  to  her  parents,  and  do  it 
directly,  or  Nemesis  and  the  Eumenides  will 
overtake  thee. '  Knowing  the  estimation  in 
which  my  father  had  always  been  holden  by  his 
fellow-citizens,  I  laughed  again  and  pinched  his 
ear.  He,  although  naturally  choleric,  burst 
forth  into  no  resentment  at  these  reproaches, 
but  said  calmly,  'I  think  I  know  thee  by  name, 
O  guest !  Surely  thou  art  Xanthus,  the  Samian. 
Deliver  this  child  from  famine. ' 

"Again  I  laughed  aloud  and  heartily,  and 
thinking  it  was  now  part  of  the  game,  I  held  out 
both  my  arms,  and  protruded  my  whole  body 
toward  the  stranger.  He  would  not  receive  me 
from  my  father's  neck,  but  he  asked  me  with 
benignity  and  solicitude  if  I  was  hungry;  at 
which  I  laughed  again,  and  more  than  ever;  for 
it  was  early  in  the  morning,  soon  after  the  first 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

meal,  and  my  father  had  nourished  me  most 
carefully  and  plentifully  in  all  the  days  of  the 
famine.  But  Xanthus,  waiting  for  no  answer, 
took  out  of  a  sack,  which  one  of  his  slaves  carried 
at  his  side,  a  cake  of  wheaten  bread  and  a  piece 
of  honeycomb,  and  gave  them  to  me.  I  held 
the  honeycomb  to  my  father's  mouth,  thinking 
it  the  most  of  a  dainty.  He  dashed  it  to  the 
ground,  but  seizing  the  bread  he  began  to  devour 
it  ferociously.  This  also  I  thought  was  in  the 
play,  and  I  clapped  my  hands  at  his  distortions. 
But  Xanthus  looked  at  him  like  one  afraid,  and 
smote  the  cake  from  him,  crying  aloud,  'Name 
the  price.'  My  father  now  placed  me  in  his 
arms,  naming  a  price  much  below  what  the  other 
had  offered,  saying,  'The  gods  are  ever  with 
thee,  O  Xanthus !  therefore  to  thee  do  I  consign 
my  child. ' 

"But  while  Xanthus  was  counting  out  the 
silver  my  father  seized  the  cake  again,  which  the 
slave  had  taken  up  and  was  about  to  replace  in 
the  wallet.  His  hunger  was  exasperated  by  the 
taste,  and  the  delay.  Suddenly  there  arose 
much  tumult.  Turning  round  in  the  old  wo- 
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man's  bosom  who  had  received  me  from  Xan- 
thus,  I  saw  my  beloved  father  struggling  on  the 
ground,  livid  and  speechless.  The  more  violent 
my  cries,  the  more  rapidly  they  hurried  me 
away ;  and  many  were  soon  between  us. 

' '  Little  was  I  suspicious  that  he  had  suffered 
the  pangs  of  famine  long  before:  alas!  and  he 
had  suffered  them  for  me.  Do  I  weep  while  I 
am  telling  you  they  ended?  I  could  not  have 
closed  his  eyes;  I  was  too  young;  but  I  might 
have  received  his  last  breath,  the  only  comfort 
of  an  orphan's  bosom.  Do  you  now  think  him 
blameable,  O  ^sop?" 

"JLsop.  It  was  sublime  humanity;  it  was  for- 
bearance and  self-denial  which  even  the  immor- 
tal gods  have  never  shown  us. " 

The  Dream  of  Petrarca  is,  I  think,  more 
famous  but  not  more  beautiful  than  this 
narrative  of  Rhodope ;  it  lacks  the  deep  human 
tragedy  and  infinite  charity  of  the  winsome 
child,  and  the  self-contained  father  silently 
perishing  of  hunger  for  her;  but  if  the  sEsop 
and  Rhodope  had  never  been  written,  the 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

Dream  of  Petrarca  would  secure  its  author  a 
place  among  the  immortals : — 

"...  Wearied  with  the  length  of  my  walk 
over  the  mountains,  and  finding  a  soft  molehill, 
covered  with  grey  moss,  by  the  wayside,  I  laid 
my  head  upon  it  and  slept.  I  cannot  tell  how 
long  it  was  before  a  species  of  dream  or  vision 
came  over  me. 

"Two  beautiful  youths  appeared  beside  me; 
each  was  winged;  but  the  wings  were  hanging 
down  and  seemed  ill-adapted  to  flight.  One  of 
them,  whose  voice  was  the  softest  I  ever  heard, 
looking  at  me  frequently,  said  to  the  other, 
'He  is  under  my  guardianship  for  the  present; 
do  not  awaken  him  with  that  feather.'  Me- 
thought,  on  hearing  the  whisper,  I  saw  some- 
thing like  the  feather  on  an  arrow;  and  then  the 
arrow  itself;  the  whole  of  it,  even  to  the  point, 
although  he  carried  it  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
was  difficult  at  first  to  discover  more  than  a  palm's 
length  of  it ;  the  rest  of  the  shaft  (and  the  whole 
of  the  barb)  was  behind  his  ankles. 

"  'This  feather  never  awakens  anyone,'  re- 
plied he,  rather  petulantly,  'but  it  brings  more 
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of  confident  security,  and  more  of  cherished 
dreams,  than  you,  without  me,  are  capable  of 
imparting. ' 

'"Be  it  so!'  answered  the  gentler;  'none  is 
less  inclined  to  quarrel  or  dispute  than  am  I. 
Many  whom  you  have  wounded  grievously  call 
upon  me  for  succour ;  but  so  little  am  I  disposed 
to  thwart  you,  it  is  seldom  I  venture  to  do  more 
for  them  than  to  whisper  a  few  words  of  comfort 
in  passing.  How  many  reproaches  on  these 
occasions  have  been  cast  upon  me  for  indiffer- 
ence and  infidelity!  Nearly  as  many,  and 
nearly  in  the  same  terms  as  upon  you. ' 

"  'Odd  enough  that  we,  O  Sleep!  should  be 
thought  so  alike!'  said  Love  contemptuously. 
'Yonder  is  he  who  bears  a  nearer  resemblance 
to  you ;  the  dullest  have  observed  it. '  I  fancied 
I  turned  my  eyes  to  where  he  was  pointing,  and 
saw  at  a  distance  the  figure  he  designated. 
Meanwhile  the  contention  went  on  uninterrupt- 
edly. Sleep  was  slow  in  asserting  his  power 
or  his  benefits.  Love  recapitulated  them; 
but  only  that  he  might  assert  his  own  above 
them. 

I2O 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"Suddenly  he  called  upon  me  to  decide, 
and  to  choose  my  patron.  Under  the  influ- 
ence, first  of  the  one,  then  of  the  other,  I 
sprang  from  repose  to  rapture,  I  alighted 
from  rapture  on  repose,  and  knew  not  which 
was  sweetest.  Love  was  very  angry  with  me, 
and  declared  he  would  cross  me  through  the 
whole  of  my  existence.  Whatever  I  might 
on  other  occasions  have  thought  of  his  verac- 
ity, I  now  felt  too  surely  that  he  would  keep 
his  word. 

"At  last,  before  the  close  of  the  altercation, 
the  third  Genius  had  advanced,  and  stood  near 
us.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  I  knew  him,  but  I 
knew  him  to  be  the  Genius  of  Death.  Breathless 
as  I  was  at  beholding  him,  I  soon  became  famil- 
iar with  his  features.  First  they  seemed  only 
calm;  presently  they  grew  contemplative;  and 
lastly  beautiful;  those  of  the  Graces  them- 
selves are  less  regular,  less  harmonious,  less 
composed. 

"Love  glanced  at  him  unsteadily,  with  a 
countenance  in  which  there  was  somewhat  of 
anxiety,  somewhat  of  disdain;  and  cried,  'Go 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

away !  go  away !  nothing  that  thou  touchest,  lives !' 
'Say  rather,  child!'  replied  the  advancing  form, 
and  advancing  grew  loftier  and  statelier,  'say 
rather  that  nothing  of  beautiful  or  of  glorious 
lives  its  own  true  life  until  my  wing  hath  passed 
over  it.  * 

"Love  pouted,  and  rumpled  and  bent  down 
with  his  forefinger  the  stiff  short  feathers  on 
his  arrow-head,  but  replied  not.  Although  he 
frowned  worse  than  ever,  and  at  me,  I  dreaded 
him  less  and  less,  and  scarcely  looked  towards 
him.  The  milder  and  calmer  Genius,  the  third, 
in  proportion  as  I  took  courage  to  contemplate 
him,  regarded  me  with  more  and  more  com- 
placency. He  held  neither  flower  nor  arrow  as 
the  others  did,  but  throwing  back  the  clusters 
of  dark  curls  that  overshadowed  his  counte- 
nance, he  presented  to  me  his  hand,  openly  and 
benignly.  I  shrank  on  looking  at  him  so  near, 
and  yet  I  sighed  to  love  him.  He  smiled,  not 
without  an  expression  of  pity,  at  perceiving  my 
diffidence,  my  timidity;  for  I  remembered  how 
soft  was  the  hand  of  Sleep,  how  warm  and  en- 
trancing was  Love's. 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"By  degrees  I  became  ashamed  of  my  ingrati- 
tude, and  turning  my  face  away,  I  held  out  my 
arms,  and  I  felt  my  neck  within  his;  the  cool- 
ness of  freshest  morning  breathed  around; the 
heavens  seemed  to  open  above  me,  while  the 
beautiful  cheek  of  my  deliverer  rested  on  my 
head.  I  would  now  have  looked  for  those 
others,  but  knowing  my  intention  by  my  ges- 
ture, he  said  consolatorily,  'Sleep  is  on  his 
way  to  the  Earth,  where  many  are  calling 
him;  but  it  is  not  to  these  he  hastens,  for 
every  call  only  makes  him  fly  further  off.  Se- 
dately and  gravely  as  he  looks,  he  is  nearly  as 
capricious  and  volatile  as  the  more  arrogant 
and  ferocious  one. ' 

"  'And  Love!'  said  I,  'whither  is  he  departed? 
If  not  too  late,  I  would  propitiate  and  appease 
him.' 

"  'He  who  cannot  follow  me;  he  who  cannot 
overtake  and  pass  me,'  said  the  Genius,  'is 
unworthy  of  the  name,  the  most  glorious  in  earth 
or  heaven.  Look  up!  Love  is  yonder,  and 
ready  to  receive  thee. ' 

"I  looked:  the  earth  was  under  me:  I  saw 
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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

only  the  clear  blue  sky,  and  something  brighter 
above  it." 

There  is  something  most  rare  and  refined 
and  precious  in  this  vision,  told  as  it  is  with  a 
sweet  serenity.  But  it  does  not  touch  the 
heart  like  the  &sop  and  Rhodope. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


124 


20 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  now  come  to  speak  of  one  whose  fame  was 
familiar  to  me  as  a  boy — the  great  Lord 
Brougham, — for  he  lived  till  1868.  I  remem- 
ber that  he  was  vehemently  praised  and 
blamed  as  a  politician,  but  with  such  matters 
others  have  dealt;  in  this  letter,  Antony,  we 
will  concern  ourselves  with  the  glory  of  English 
prose  as  it  poured  from  Lord  Brougham  in  two 
of  his  greatest  speeches. 

He  was  an  orator  whose  voice  was  uplifted 
throughout  a  long  and  strenuous  life  in  con- 
demnation of  all  the  brutalities  and  oppres- 
sion of  his  time,  and  to  whose  eloquence  the 
triumphant  cause  of  freedom  stands  for  ever 
in  deep  obligation. 

His  great  speech  on  Law  Reform  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  in  1828,  took  six  hours  to 
deliver,  and  the  concluding  passage,  which 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

mounted  to  a  plane  of  lofty  declamation,  dis- 
played no  sign  of  exhaustion,  and  was  listened 
to  with  strained  attention  by  an  absorbed  and 
crowded  audience : — 

"The  course  is  clear  before  us;  the  race  is 
glorious  to  run.  You  have  the  power  of  sending 
your  name  down  through  all  times,  illustrated 
by  deeds  of  higher  fame,  and  more  useful  im- 
port, than  ever  were  done  within  these  walls. 

"You  saw  the  greatest  warrior  of  the  age — 
conqueror  of  Italy — humbler  of  Germany — 
terror  of  the  North — saw  him  account  all  his 
matchless  victories  poor,  compared  with  the 
triumph  you  are  now  in  a  condition  to  win — saw 
him  contemn  the  fickleness  of  fortune,  while,  in 
despite  of  her,  he  could  pronounce  his  memor- 
able boast,  '  I  shall  go  down  to  posterity  with  the 
Code  in  my  hand ! ' 

' '  You  have  vanquished  him  in  the  field ;  strive 
now  to  rival  him  in  the  sacred  arts  of  peace! 
Outstrip  him  as  a  lawgiver,  whom  in  arms  you 
overcame!  The  lustre  of  the  Regency  will  be 
eclipsed  by  the  more  solid  and  enduring  splen- 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

dour  of  the  Reign.  The  praise  which  false 
courtiers  feigned  for  our  Edwards  and  Harrys, 
the  Justinians  of  their  day,  will  be  the  just 
tribute  of  the  wise  and  the  good  to  that  monarch 
under  whose  sway  so  mighty  an  undertaking 
shall  be  accomplished.  Of  a  truth,  the  holders 
of  sceptres  are  most  chiefly  to  be  envied  for  that 
they  bestow  the  power  of  thus  conquering,  and 
ruling  thus. 

"It  was  the  boast  of  Augustus — it  formed 
part  of  the  glare  in  which  the  perfidies  of  his 
earlier  years  were  lost, — that  he  found  Rome  of 
brick,  and  left  it  of  marble;  a  praise  not  un- 
worthy a  great  prince,  and  to  which  the  present 
reign  also  has  its  claims.  But  how  much  nobler 
will  be  the  sovereign's  boast  when  he  shall  have 
it  to  say,  that  he  found  law  dear,  and  left  it 
cheap;  found  it  a  sealed  book — left  it  a  living 
letter;  found  it  the  patrimony  of  the  rich — left 
it  the  inheritance  of  the  poor;  found  it  the  two- 
edged  sword  of  craft  and  oppression — lef t  it  the 
staff  of  honesty  and  the  shield  of  innocence ! 

"To  me,  much  reflecting  on  these  things,  it 
has  always  seemed  a  worthier  honour  to  be  the 
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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

instrument  of  making  you  bestir  yourselves  in 
this  high  matter,  than  to  enjoy  all  that  office 
can  bestow — office,  of  which  the  patronage 
would  be  an  irksome  encumbrance,  the  emolu- 
ments superfluous  to  one  content  with  the  rest 
of  his  industrious  fellow-citizens  that  his  own 
hands  minister  to  his  wants ;  and  as  for  the  power 
supposed  to  follow  it — I  have  lived  near  half  a 
century,  and  I  have  learned  that  power  and 
place  may  be  severed. 

"But  one  power  I  do  prize;  that  of  being  the 
advocate  of  my  countrymen  here,  and  their 
fellow-labourers  elsewhere,  in  those  things  which 
concern  the  best  interests  of  mankind.  That 
power,  I  know  full  well,  no  government  can 
give — no  change  take  away!" 

His  speech  on  negro  slavery  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  the  country,  and  rose  towards 
its  termination,  gradually,  but  with  ever- 
ascending  periods,  to  a  close  of  absolute 
majesty: — 

"I  regard  the  freedom  of  the  negro  as  accom- 
plished and  sure.    Why?    Because  it   is  his 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

right — because  he  has  shown  himself  fit  for  it; 
because  a  pretext,  or  a  shadow  of  a  pretext,  can 
no  longer  be  devised  for  withholding  that  right 
from  its  possessor.  I  know  that  all  men  at  this 
day  take  a  part  in  the  question,  and  they  will  no 
longer  bear  to  be  imposed  upon,  now  they  are 
well  informed.  My  reliance  is  firm  and  unflinch- 
ing upon  the  great  change  which  I  have  wit- 
nessed— the  education  of  the  people,  unfettered 
by  party  or  by  sect — witnessed  from  the  begin- 
ning of  its  progress,  I  may  say  from  the  hour  of 
its  birth!  Yes!  It  was  not  for  a  humble  man 
like  me  to  assist  at  royal  births  with  the  illus- 
trious Prince  who  condescended  to  grace  the 
pageant  of  this  opening  session,  or  the  great 
captain  and  statesman  in  whose  presence  I  am 
now  proud  to  speak.  But  with  that  illustrious 
Prince,  and  with  the  father  of  the  Queen,  I 
assisted  at  that  other  birth,  more  conspicuous 
still.  With  them,  and  with  the  head  of  the 
House  of  Russell,  incomparably  more  illustrious 
in  my  eyes,  I  watched  over  its  cradle — I  marked 
its  growth — I  rejoiced  in  its  strength — I  wit- 
nessed its  maturity;  I  have  been  spared  to  see 
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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

it  ascend  the  very  height  of  supreme  power;  di- 
recting the  councils  of  state;  accelerating  every 
great  improvement;  uniting  itself  with  every 
good  work;  propping  all  useful  institutions; 
extirpating  abuses  in  all  our  institutions ;  passing 
the  bounds  of  our  European  dominion,  and  in 
the  New  World,  as  in  the  Old,  proclaiming  that 
freedom  is  the  birthright  of  man — that  distinc- 
tion of  colour  gives  no  title  to  oppression — that 
the  chains  now  loosened  must  be  struck  off,  and 
even  the  marks  they  have  left  effaced — pro- 
claiming this  by  the  same  eternal  law  of  our 
nature  which  makes  nations  the  masters  of  their 
own  destiny,  and  which  in  Europe  has  caused 
every  tyrant's  throne  to  quake ! 

' '  But  they  need  feel  no  alarm  at  the  progress 
of  light  who  defend  a  limited  monarchy  and  sup- 
port popular  institutions — who  place  their  chief  - 
est  pride  not  in  ruling  over  slaves,  be  they  white 
or  be  they  black,  not  in  protecting  the  oppressor, 
but  in  wearing  a  constitutional  crown,  in  holding 
the  sword  of  justice  with  the  hand  of  mercy,  in 
being  the  first  citizen  of  a  country  whose  air  is 
too  pure  for  slavery  to  breathe,  and  on  whose 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

shores,  if  the  captive's  foot  but  touch,  his  fetters 
of  themselves  fall  off.  To  the  resistless  progress 
of  this  great  principle  I  look  with  a  confidence 
which  nothing  can  shake ;  it  makes  all  improve- 
ment certain ;  it  makes  all  change  safe  which  it 
produces ;  for  none  can  be  brought  about  unless 
it  has  been  prepared  in  a  cautious  and  salutary 
spirit. 

"So  now  the  fulness  of  time  is  come  for  at 
length  discharging  our  duty  to  the  African 
captive.  I  have  demonstrated  to  you  that 
everything  is  ordered — every  previous  step 
taken — all  safe,  by  experience  shown  to  be  safe, 
for  the  long-desired  consummation.  The  time 
has  come,  the  trial  has  been  made,  the  hour  is 
striking;  you  have  no  longer  a  pretext  for  hesi- 
tation, or  faltering,  or  delay.  The  slave  has 
shown,  by  four  years'  blameless  behaviour,  and 
devotion  to  the  pursuits  of  peaceful  industry, 
that  he  is  as  fit  for  his  freedom  as  any  English 
peasant,  ay,  or  any  lord  whom  I  now  address. 

"I  demand  his  rights;  I  demand  his  liberty 
without  stint.  In  the  name  of  justice  and  of 
law — in  the  name  of  reason — in  the  name  of 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

God,  who  has  given  you  no  right  to  work  injus- 
tice; I  demand  that  your  brother  be  no  longer 
trampled  upon  as  your  slave !  I  make  my  appeal 
to  the  Commons,  who  represent  the  free  people 
of  England;  and  I  require  at  their  hands  the 
performance  of  that  condition  for  which  they 
paid  so  enormous  a  price — that  condition  which 
all  their  constituents  are  in  breathless  anxiety 
to  see  fulfilled !  I  appeal  to  this  House.  Heredi- 
tary judges  of  the  first  tribunal  in  the  world — 
to  you  I  appeal  for  justice.  Patrons  of  all  the 
arts  that  humanise  mankind — under  your  pro- 
tection I  place  humanity  herself!  To  the 
merciful  Sovereign  of  a  free  people  I  call  aloud 
for  mercy  to  the  hundreds  of  thousands  for 
whom  half  a  million  of  her  Christian  sisters  have 
cried  aloud — I  ask  that  their  cry  may  not  have 
risen  in  vain.  But  first  I  turn  my  eye  to  the 
throne  of  all  justice,  and  devoutly  humbling 
myself  before  Him  who  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to 
behold  such  vast  iniquities^  I  implore  that  the 
curse  hovering  over  the  head  of  the  unjust  and 
the  oppressor  be  averted  from  us — that  your 
hearts  may  be  turned  to  mercy — and  that  over 
132 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

all    the    earth    His    will    may    at    length    be 
done!" 

This  is  nobly  to  use  noble  gifts ;  it  is  difficult 
to  think  ill  of  a  man  who  can  carry  oratory  for 
a  glorious  object  to  such  heights  of  splendour. 
It  may  seem  a  duty  to  some  to  darken  his 
character  with  detraction,  but  his  inspiring 
words  remain  supreme  and  unsullied  and  will 
still  live  when  such  faults  as  may  be  truly  laid 
to  his  charge  are  long  forgotten.  To  fight  for 
a  great  cause,  Antony,  is  rightly  to  use  great 
powers,  and  this  is  what  Lord  Brougham  did 
with  all  his  might. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


21 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

In  the  great  emprise  of  war  it  must  often 
happen  that  the  most  awful  scenes  of  mani- 
fested human  power,  and  the  most  godlike 
deeds  of  human  glory,  are  lost  to  the 
contemporary  world,  and  utterly  unknown  to 
succeeding  generations,  because  they  were 
witnessed  by  no  man  with  the  gift  of  expres- 
sion who  could  record  for  after  time,  in 
adequate  language,  the  majestic  spectacle. 

In  the  great  war  against  Germany  no  great 
writer  has  yet  appeared  who  was  personally  in 
touch  as  a  living  witness  of  the  countless  deeds 
of  glorious  valour  and  acts  of  heroic  endurance 
that  were  everywhere  displayed  upon  that 
immense  far-stretched  front. 

But  in  the  wars  of  former  times,  a  whole 
battle  could  be  witnessed  from  its  beginning  to 
its  end  by  a  single  commander,  and  no  scenes 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

in  human  life  could  be  more  terrible  and  soul- 
stirring  than  the  awful  ebb  and  flow  of  a  great 
combat  in  which  the  victory  of  armies  and  the 
fate  of  nations  hung  in  the  balance. 

The  battle  of  Albuera  in  the  Peninsular  War 
might  easily  at  this  date  have  long  been  for- 
fotten  had  not  the  pen  of  Sir  William  Napier 
been  as  puissant  as  his  sword.  The  battle  had 
raged  for  hours,  and  the  British  were  well-nigh 
overwhelmed;  the  Colonel,  twenty  officers, 
and  over  four  hundred  men  out  of  five  hundred 
and  seventy  had  fallen  in  the  57th  alone;  not 
a  third  were  left  standing  in  the  other  regi- 
ments that  had  been  closely  engaged  through- 
out the  day.  Then  Cole  was  ordered  up  with 
his  fourth  division  as  a  last  hope,  and  this  is 
how  Sir  William  Napier  records  their 
advance : — 

"Such  a  gallant  line,  issuing  from  the  midst 
of  the  smoke  and  rapidly  separating  itself  from 
the  confused  and  broken  multitude,  startled  the 
enemy's  masses,  then  augmenting  and  pressing 
onwards  as  to  an  assured  victory;  they  wavered, 
135 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

hesitated,  and  vomiting  forth  a  storm  of  fire 
hastily  endeavoured  to  enlarge  their  front,  while 
a  fearful  discharge  of  grape  from  all  their  artil- 
lery whistled  through  the  British  ranks  .  .  .  the 
English  battalions,  struck  by  the  iron  tempest, 
reeled  and  staggered  like  sinking  ships;  but 
suddenly  and  sternly  recovering,  they  closed  on 
their  terrible  enemies,  and  then  was  seen  with 
what  a  strength  and  majesty  the  British  soldier 
fights. 

"In  vain  did  Soult  with  voice  and  gesture 
animate  his  Frenchmen ;  in  vain  did  the  hardiest 
veterans,  breaking  from  the  crowded  columns, 
sacrifice  their  lives  to  gain  time  for  the  mass  to 
open  out  on  such  a  fair  field ;  in  vain  did  the  mass 
itself  bear  up,  and,  fiercely  striving,  fire  indis- 
criminately upon  friends  and  foes,  while  the 
horsemen  hovering  on  the  flank  threatened 
to  charge  the  advancing  line. 

' '  Nothing  could  stop  that  astonishing  infantry. 

' '  No  sudden  burst  of  undisciplined  valour,  no 

nervous  enthusiasm  weakened  the  stability  of 

their  order ;  their  flashing  eyes  were  bent  on  the 

dark  columns  in  their  front;  their  measured 

136 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

tread  shook  the  ground ;  their  dreadful  volleys 
swept  away  the  head  of  every  formation;  their 
deafening  shouts  overpowered  the  dissonant 
cries  that  broke  from  all  parts  of  the  tumultuous 
crowd  as  slowly,  and  with  a  horrid  carnage,  it 
was  pushed  by  the  incessant  vigour  of  the 
attack  to  the  farthest  edge  of  the  height.  There 
the  French  reserve,  mixing  with  the  struggling 
multitude,  endeavoured  to  restore  the  fight,  but 
only  augmented  the  irremediable  disorder,  and 
the  mighty  mass,  giving  way  like  a  loosened 
cliff,  went  headlong  down  the  steep;  the  rain 
flowed  after  in  streams  discoloured  with  blood, 
and  eighteen  hundred  unwounded  men,  the 
remnant  of  six  thousand  unconquerable  British 
soldiers,  stood  triumphant  on  the  fatal  hill ! 

' '  The  laurel  is  nobly  won  when  the  exhausted 
victor  reels  as  he  places  it  on  his  bleeding  front. 

"All  that  night  the  rain  poured  down,  and  the 
river  and  the  hills  and  the  woods  resounded  with 
the  dismal  clamour  and  groans  of  dying  men. " 

Sir  William  Napier  seems  intimately  to  have 
known  the  transience  of  the  gratitude  of  na- 

137 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

tions  to  those  who  fight  their  battles  for  them. 
At  the  end  of  his  noble  history  of  the  Penin- 
sular War  he  lets  the  curtain  fall  upon  the 
scene  with  solemn  brevity  in  a  single  sentence, 
thus : — 

"The  British  infantry  embarked  at  Bordeaux, 
some  for  America,  some  for  England:  the  cav- 
alry, marching  through  France,  took  shipping 
at  Boulogne.  Thus  the  war  terminated,  and 
with  it  all  remembrance  of  the  Veterans'  ser- 
vices. 

"Yet  those  Veterans  had  won  nineteen 
pitched  battles,  and  innumerable  combats;  had 
made  or  sustained  ten  sieges  and  taken  four 
great  fortresses;  had  twice  expelled  the  French 
from  Portugal,  once  from  Spain ;  had  penetrated 
France,  and  killed,  wounded,  or  captured  two 
hundred  thousand  enemies — leaving  of  their 
own  number,  forty  thousand  dead,  whose  bones, 
whiten  the  plains  and  mountains  of  the  Penin- 
sula." 

Science  and  the  base  malignity  of  our  latest 
adversaries  have  debased  modern  warfare,  as 

138 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

waged  by  them,  from  its  ancient  dignity  and 
honour;  and  they  have  conducted  it  so  as  to 
make  it  difficult  to  believe  that  from  the 
Kaiser  down  to  the  subaltern  on  land  and  the 
petty  officer  at  sea  that  nation  can  produce  a 
single  gentleman. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


139 


22 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

This  letter,  like  the  last  one,  is  concerned 
with  war.  War  brings  to  every  man  not 
incapacitated  by  age  or  physical  defects  the 
call  of  his  country  to  fight,  and  if  need  be  to 
die,  for  it.  It  also  exposes  to  view  the  few 
pusillanimous  young  men  who  are  satisfied 
to  enjoy  protection  from  the  horrors  of  in- 
vasion and  the  priceless  boon  of  personal 
freedom,  secured  to  them  by  the  self-sacrifice 
and  valour  of  others,  while  they  themselves 
remain  snugly  at  home  and  talk  of  their 
consciences. 

Patriotism  such  as  that  which  in  1914  led 
the  flower  of  our  race  to  flock  in  countless 
thousands  to  the  standards  and  be  enrolled 
for  battle  in  defence  of 

"This     precious     stone     set    in    the    silver 
sea," 

140 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this 
England," 

being  without  doubt  or  cavil  one  of  the 
noblest  emotions  of  the  human  heart,  has 
often  been  the  begetter  of  inspired  prose. 

Our  own  great  war  has  not  yet  produced 
many  fine  utterances,  and  I  go  back  to-day  to 
a  contemporary  of  Sir  William  Napier  for  one 
of  the  noblest  outbursts  of  eloquence  express- 
ive of  a  burning  patriotism  that  has  ever  been 
poured  forth. 

Someone  in  the  days  when  Wellington  was 
alive  had  alluded  in  the  House  of  Lords  to  the 
Irish  as  " aliens,"  and  Richard  Sheil,  rising  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  lifted  up  his  voice 
for  his  country  in  an  impassioned  flight  of 
generous  eloquence. 

Sir  Henry  Hardinge,  who  had  been  at  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  happened  to  be  seated 
opposite  to  Sheil  in  the  House,  and  to  him 
Sheil  appealed  with  the  deepest  emotion  to 
support  him  in  his  vindication  of  his  country's 
valour.  None  will  in  these  days  deny  that 

141 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

our  fellow-citizens  of  Ireland  who  went  to  the 
war  displayed  a  courage  as  firm  and  invincible 
as  our  own : — 

"The  Duke  of  Wellington  is  not,  I  am  inclined 
to  believe,  a  man  of  excitable  temperament.  His 
mind  is  of  a  cast  too  martial  to  be  easily  moved ; 
but,  notwithstanding  his  habitual  inflexibility, 
I  cannot  help  thinking,  that  when  he  heard  his 
countrymen  (for  we  are  his  countrymen)  desig- 
nated by  a  phrase  so  offensive  he  ought  to  have 
recalled  the  many  fields  of  fight  in  which  we 
have  been  contributors  to  his  renown.  Yes,  the 
battles,  sieges,  fortunes,  that  he  has  passed 
ought  to  have  brought  back  upon  him,  that 
from  the  earliest  achievement  in  which  he  dis- 
played that  military  genius  which  has  placed 
him  foremost  in  the  annals  of  modern  warfare, 
down  to  that  last  and  surpassing  combat  which 
has  made  his  name  imperishable,  the  Irish  sol- 
diers, with  whom  our  armies  are  filled,  were  the 
inseparable  auxiliaries  to  his  glory. 

' '  Whose  were  the  athletic  arms  that  drove  their 
bayonets  at  Vimiera  through  those  phalanxes 
142 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

that  never  reeled  in  the  shock  of  war  before? 
What  desperate  valour  climbed  the  steeps  and 
filled  the  moats  at  Badajos !  All !  all  his  victories 
should  have  rushed  and  crowded  back  upon  his 
memory — Vimiera,  Badajos,  Salamanca,  Al- 
buera,  Toulouse,  and  last  of  all  the  greatest! 
(and  here  Sheil  pointed  to  Sir  Henry  Hardinge 
across  the  House) .  Tell  me,  for  you  were  there. 
I  appeal  to  the  gallant  soldier  before  me,  from 
whose  opinions  I  differ,  but  who  bears,  I  know, 
a  generous  heart  in  an  intrepid  breast;  tell  me, 
for  you  must  needs  remember,  on  that  day  when 
the  destinies  of  mankind  were  trembling  in  the 
balance,  while  death  fell  in  showers  upon  them, 
when  the  artillery  of  France,  levelled  with  a 
precision  of  the  most  deadly  science,  played 
upon  them,  when  her  legions,  incited  by  the 
voice  and  inspired  by  the  example  of  their 
mighty  leader,  rushed  again  and  again  to  the 
onset — tell  me  if  for  one  instant,  when  to  hesi- 
tate for  one  instant  was  to  be  lost,  the  'aliens' 
blenched! 

"And  when  at  length  the  moment  for  the  last 
and  decisive  movement  had  arrived,  and  the 
143 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

valour  which  had  so  long  been  wisely  checked 
was  at  length  let  loose,  tell  me  if  Ireland  with 
less  heroic  valour  than  the  natives  of  your  own 
glorious  isle,  precipitated  herself  upon  the  foe? 

"The  blood  of  England,  of  Scotland,  and  01 
Ireland,  flowed  in  the  same  stream,  on  the  same 
field.  When  the  still  morning  dawned,  their 
dead  lay  cold  and  stark  together;  in  the  same 
deep  earth  their  bodies  were  deposited ;  the  green 
corn  of  spring  is  now  breaking  from  their  com- 
mingled dust;  the  dew  falls  from  Heaven  upon 
their  union  in  the  grave. 

"Partners  in  every  peril — in  the  glory  shall 
we  not  be  permitted  to  participate,  and  shall  we 
be  told  as  a  requital  that  we  are  aliens,  and 
estranged  from  the  noble  country  for  whose 
salvation  our  life-blood  was  poured  out?" 

A  hundred  years  of  strife,  misunderstanding, 
anger,  estrangement,  outrages,  bloodshed,  and 
murder  separate  us  from  this  appealing  cry 
wrung  from  the  beating  heart  of  this  inspired 
Irishman.  Is  the  great  tragedy  of  England 
and  Ireland  that  has  sullied  their  annals  for 

144 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

seven  hundred  years  never  to  be  brought  to 
an  end?  Is  there  never  to  be  for  us  a  Lethe 
through  which  we  may  pass  to  the  farther 
shore  of  forgetfulness  and  forgiveness  of  the 
past  and  reconciliation  in  the  future? 

That  you  may  live  to  see  it,  Antony,  is  my 
hope  and  prayer. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


i45 


23 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  gave  you  in  a  former  letter  Burke's  famous 
passage  on  the  fate  of  Marie  Antoinette — in 
some  ways  the  most  splendid  of  his  utterances, 
— and  I  now  am  going  to  quote  to  you  a  very 
great  passage  from  Thomas  Carlyle  on  the 
same  tragic  subject. 

Courageous  was  it  of  Carlyle,  who  must 
certainly  have  been  familiar  with  Burke's 
noble  ejaculation,  to  challenge  it  with  emu- 
lation ;  but  in  the  result  we  must  admit  that  he 
amply  justifies  his  temerity. 

The  tragic  figure  of  the  queen  drawn  to 
execution  through  the  roaring  mob  inspired 
Carlyle  with  what  is  surely  his  most  over- 
whelming product. 

The  august  shadow  of  the  Bible  is  dimly 
apprehended  as  the  words  ascend  upwards  and 

146 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

upwards  with  simple  sublimity  to  the  awful 
close. 

Nothing  he  wrote  in  all  his  multitudinous 
volumes  surpasses  this  astonishing  outburst : — 

"Beautiful  Highborn  that  wert  so  foully 
hurled  low ! 

"For,  if  thy  being  came  to  thee  out  of  old 
Hapsburg  Dynasties,  came  it  not  also  out  of 
Heaven?  Sunt  lachrymce.  rerum,  et  mentem  mor- 
talia  tangunt.  Oh !  is  there  a  man's  heart  that 
thinks  without  pity  of  those  long  months  and 
years  of  slow- wasting  ignominy; — of  thy  birth 
soft-cradled,  the  winds  of  Heaven  not  to  visit 
thy  face  too  roughly,  thy  foot  to  light  on  soft- 
ness, thy  eye  on  splendour;  and  then  of  thy 
death,  or  hundred  deaths,  to  which  the  guillotine 
and  Fouquier  Tinville's  judgment  was  but  the 
merciful  end? 

"Look  there,  O  man  born  of  woman!  The 
bloom  of  that  fair  face  is  wasted,  the  hair  is  grey 
with  care;  the  brightness  of  those  eyes  is 
quenched,  their  lids  hang  drooping,  the  face  is 
stony  pale  as  of  one  living  in  death. 
147 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

"Mean  weeds  which  her  own  hand  has 
mended  attire  the  Queen  of  the  World.  The 
death-hurdle,  where  thou  sittest  pale,  motion- 
less, which  only  curses  environ,  has  to  stop — a 
people  drunk  with  vengeance  will  drink  it  again 
in  full  draught,  looking  at  thee  there.  Far  as 
the  eye  reaches,  a  multitudinous  sea  of  maniac 
heads,  the  air  deaf  with  their  triumph-yell ! 

' '  The  living-dead  must  shudder  with  yet  one 
more  pang ;  her  startled  blood  yet  again  suffuses 
with  the  hue  of  agony  that  pale  face,  which  she 
hides  with  her  hands. 

"There  is,  then,  no  heart  to  say,  'God  pity 
thee'? 

"O  think  not  of  these:  think  of  Him  Whom 
thou  worshippest,  the  Crucified — Who  also 
treading  the  winepress  alone,  fronted  sorrow 
still  deeper,  and  triumphed  over  it,  and  made  it 
holy,  and  built  of  it  a  Sanctuary  of  Sorrow  for 
thee  and  all  the  wretched ! 

"Thy  path  of  thorns  is  nigh  ended.  One  long 
last  look  at  the  Tuileries,  where  thy  step  was 
once  so  light — where  thy  children  shall  not  dwell. 

"Thy  head  is  on  the  block;  the  axe  rushes — 
148 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

dumb  lies  the  world;  that  wild-yelling  world, 
and  all  its  madness,  is  behind  thee. " 

There  is  a  passage  in  Carry  le's  tempestuous 
narrative  of  the  taking  of  the  Bastille  which 
has  always  seemed  to  me  to  give  it  the  last 
consummate  touch  of  greatness. 

Suddenly  he  pauses  in  the  turmoil  and  dust 
and  wrath  and  madness  of  that  tremendous 
conflict,  and  his  poetic  vision  gazes  away  over 
peaceful  France,  and  he  exclaims: — 

' '  O  evening  sun  of  July,  how,  at  this  hour  thy 
beams  fall  slant  on  reapers  amid  peaceful  woody 
fields;  on  old  women  spinning  in  cottages;  on 
ships  far  out  on  the  silent  main ;  on  balls  at  the 
Orangerie  of  Versailles,  where  high  rouged 
Dames  of  the  palace  are  even  now  dancing  with 
double- jacketed  Hussar-officers : — and  also  on 
this  roaring  Hell-porch  of  a  H6tel  de  Ville. " 

And  a  few  sentences  further  on  a  heart  of  stone 
must  be  moved  by  what  the  archives  of  that 
grim  prison-house  revealed : — 

149 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

"Old  secrets  come  to  view;  and  long-buried 
despair  finds  voice.  Read  this  portion  of  an  old 
letter. 

"  'If  for  my  consolation  Monseigneur  would 
grant  me,  for  the  sake  of  God  and  the  Most 
Blessed  Trinity,  that  I  could  have  news  of  my 
dear  wife;  were  it  only  her  name  on  a  card,  to 
show  that  she  is  alive!  It  were  the  greatest 
consolation  I  could  receive;  and  I  should  for 
ever  bless  the  greatness  of  Monseigneur. ' 

"Poor  prisoner,  who  namest  thyself  Queret- 
Demery,  and  hast  no  other  history, — she  is  dead, 
that  dear  wife  of  thine,  and  thou  art  dead !  "Pis 
fifty  years  since  thy  breaking  heart  put  this 
question ;  to  be  heard  now  first,  and  long  heard, 
in  the  hearts  of  men. " 

In  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  alone,  there  were 
no  less  than  fifteen  thousand  lettres  de  cachet 
issued,  by  which  anyone  could  be  suddenly 
arrested,  and,  without  trial,  and,  heedless  of 
protest,  imprisoned  perhaps  for  life  in  the 
Bastille. 

In  the  excesses  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  three 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

or  four  thousand  persons  perished.  Their 
deaths  were  spectacular,  and  have  covered 
with  execrations  their  dreadful  executioners. 

But  it  is  right  that  we  should  remember, 
Antony,  the  life-long  agony  and  the  un- 
utterable despair  of  the  victims  of  that 
remorselessly  cruel  system  which  the  Rev- 
olution overthrew. 

The  chapter  on  the  " Everlasting  Yea,"  in 
Sartor  Resartus,  seems  to  me  to  come  nearer 
to  the  above  excerpts  than  anything  else  in 
Carlyle,  though  at  a  perceptible  distance : — 

"O  thou  that  pinest  in  the  imprisonment  of 
the  Actual,  and  criest  bitterly  to  the  gods  for  a 
kingdom  wherein  to  rule  and  create,  know  this 
of  a  truth :  the  thing  thou  seekest  is  already  with 
thee,  'here  or  nowhere,'  couldst  thou  only  see! 

"But  it  is  with  man's  Soul  as  it  was  with 
Nature:  the  beginning  of  Creation  is — Light. 
Till  the  eye  have  vision  the  whole  members  are 
in  bonds.  Divine  moment,  when  over  the  tem- 
pest-tossed Soul,  as  once  over  the  wild- wel- 
tering Chaos,  it  is  spoken :  '  Let  there  be  Light ! ' 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

Even  to  the  greatest  that  has  felt  such  moment 
is  it  not  miraculous  and  God-announcing;  even 
as,  under  simpler  figures,  to  the  simplest  and 
least.  The  mad  primeval  Discord  is  hushed; 
the  rudely- jumbled  conflicting  elements  bind 
themselves  into  separate  Firmaments:  deep, 
silent  rock-foundations  are  built  beneath,  and 
the  skyey  vault,  with  its  everlasting  Luminaries, 
above ;  instead  of  a  dark,  wasteful  Chaos,  we  have 
a  blooming,  fertile,  heaven-encompassed  World. 
"I,  too,  could  now  say  to  myself:  'Be  no 
longer  a  Chaos,  but  a  World,  or  even  Worldkin. 
Produce !  Produce !  Were  it  but  the  pitif ullest 
infinitesimal  fraction  of  a  Product,  produce  it, 
in  God's  name!  'Tis  the  utmost  thou  hast  in 
thee :  out  with  it  then.  Up,  up !  Whatsoever 
thy  hand  findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  whole 
might.  Work  while  it  is  called  to-day;  for  the 
night  cometh  wherein  no  man  can  work. ' ' 

There  is  another  passage  in  Sartor  Resartus 
which  I  have  always  held  in  veneration, 
though  the  field  labourer  is  not  now  so ' '  hardly- 
entreated  ' '  as  when  Carlyle  wrote  of  him : — 

152 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

' '  Two  men  I  honour,  and  no  third.  First  the 
toilworn  Craftsman  that  with  earth-made  imple- 
ment laboriously  conquers  the  earth,  and  makes 
her  man's. 

"Venerable  to  me  is  the  hard  hand;  crooked, 
coarse;  wherein  notwithstanding  lies  a  cunning 
virtue  indefeasibly  royal,  as  of  the  sceptre  of 
this  planet.  Venerable  too  is  the  rugged  face, 
all  weather-tanned,  besoiled,  with  its  rude  intel- 
ligence ;  for  it  is  the  face  of  a  man  living  manlike. 
Oh,  but  the  more  venerable  for  thy  rudeness, 
and  even  because  we  must  pity  as  well  as  love 
thee!  Hardly-entreated  brother!  For  us  was 
thy  back  so  bent,  for  us  were  thy  straight  limbs 
and  fingers  so  deformed ;  thou  wert  our  conscript, 
on  whom  the  lot  fell,  and  fighting  our  battles 
wert  so  marred.  For  in  thee  too  lay  a  god- 
created  form,  but  it  was  not  to  be  unfolded; 
encrusted  must  it  stand  with  the  thick  adhesions 
and  defacements  of  labour;  and  thy  body,  like 
thy  soul,  was  not  to  know  freedom.  Yet  toil 
on,  toil  on ;  thou  art  in  thy  duty,  be  out  of  it  who 
may:  thou  toilest  for  the  altogether  indispen- 
sable, for  daily  bread. 

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"A  second  man  I  honour,  and  still  more 
highly :  him  who  is  seen  toiling  for  the  spiritually 
indispensable ;  not  daily  bread,  but  the  bread  of 
life.  Is  not  he  too  in  his  duty;  endeavouring 
towards  inward  harmony ;  revealing  this,  by  act 
or  by  word,  through  all  his  outward  endeavours, 
be  they  high  or  low?  Highest  of  all,  when  his 
outward  and  his  inward  endeavour  are  one: 
when  we  can  name  him  artist ;  not  earthly  crafts- 
man only,  but  inspired  thinker,  who  with 
heaven-made  implement  conquers  heaven  for 
us!  If  the  poor  and  humble  toil  that  we  have 
food,  must  not  the  high  and  glorious  toil  for  him 
in  return,  that  he  have  light,  have  guidance, 
freedom,  immortality?  These  two,  in  all  their 
degrees,  I  honour;  all  else  is  chaff  and  dust, 
which  let  the  wind  blow  whither  it  listeth. 

"Unspeakably  touching  is  it,  however,  when 
I  find  both  dignities  united;  and  he  that  must 
toil  outwardly  for  the  lowest  of  man's  wants,  is 
also  toiling  inwardly  for  the  highest.  Sublimer 
in  this  world  know  I  nothing  than  a  peasant 
saint,  could  such  now  anywhere  be  met  with. 
Such  a  one  will  take  thee  back  to  Nazareth 
154 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

itself;  thou  wilt  see  the  splendour  of  heaven 
spring  forth  from  the  humblest  depths  of  earth, 
like  a  light  shining  in  great  darkness. " 

Sartor  Resartus  has  long  taken  its  place 
among  the  greatest  prose  works  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  it  is  a  strange  commentary 
on  this  mandate  to  us  all  to  "produce,  pro- 
duce!" to  find  that  for  eleven  years  Carlyle 
could  find  no  publisher  who  would  give  it  in 
book  form  to  the  world ! 

It  is  a  solemn  reflection  to  think  that  there 
may  be  many  books  of  eloquence  and  splen- 
dour that  have  never  seen  the  light  of  publicity. 
Publishers  concern  themselves  less  with  what 
is  finely  written  than  with  what  will  best  sell ; 
and  in  their  defence  it  may  be  acceded  that 
some  of  the  masterpieces  of  literature  have  at 
their  first  appearance  before  the  world  fallen 
dead  from  the  press. 

The  first  edition  of  FitzGerald's  Omar 
Khayyam,  issued  at  one  shilling,  was  totally 
unrecognised,  and  copies  of  it  might  have  been 

i55 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

bought  for  twopence  in  the  trays  and  boxes  of 
trash  on  the  pavement  outside  old  bookshops ! 

But  if  once  a  work  is  published,  time  will 
with  almost  irresistible  force  place  it  ulti- 
mately in  the  station  it  deserves  in  the  liter- 
ature of  the  world. 

Instant  acceptance  not  seldom  preludes 
final  rejection.  In  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  Martin  Tupper's  Proverbial  Philo- 
sophy garnished  every  drawing-room  table; 
and  now,  where  is  it? 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 

P. S. — Do  not  look  for  the  passage  on  Marie 
Antoinette  in  the  French  Revolution,  for  you 
will  not  find  it  there,  but  in  the  "Essay  of  the 
Diamond  Necklace." 


156 


24 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

You  and  I  once  had  a  cousin,  Henry  Nelson 
Coleridge,  who,  had  he  lived,  would  very 
certainly  have  left  a  brilliant  addition  to  the 
lustre  of  the  name  he  bore.  He  was  born  in 
1798,  and  only  lived  forty-five  years,  dying 
when  his  powers  were  leading  him  to  high 
fortune  in  that  legal  profession  which  so  many 
of  the  family  have  pursued. 

He  was  a  scholar  of  Eton ;  a  Fellow  of  King's 
College,  Cambridge;  he  won  the  Greek  and 
Latin  Odes  in  1820,  and  the  Greek  Ode  again 
in  1821.  To  him,  therefore,  the  classic  spirit 
was  inborn,  and  a  training  that  omitted  the 
study  of  Latin  and  Greek  the  very  negation  of 
education.  He  would  have  had  something 
very  trenchant  to  say  of  what  is  now  known 
as  "the  modern  side."  He  wrote  a  very  rich 
and  splendid  prose,  and  it  is  no  fond  family 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

partiality  that  leads  me  to  quote  to  you  his 
eloquent  and  precious  defence  of  the  classical 
languages : — 

"I  am  not  one  whose  lot  it  has  been  to  grow 
old  in  literary  retirement,  devoted  to  classical 
studies  with  an  exclusiveness  which  might  lead 
to  an  overweening  estimate  of  these  two  noble 
languages.  Few,  I  will  not  say  evil,  were  the 
days  allowed  to  me  for  such  pursuits ;  and  I  was 
constrained,  still  young  and  an  unripe  scholar 
to  forego  them  for  the  duties  of  an  active  and 
laborious  profession.  They  are  now  amuse- 
ments only,  however  delightful  and  improving. 
For  I  am  far  from  assuming  to  understand  all 
their  riches,  all  their  beauty,  or  all  their  power ; 
yet  I  can  profoundly  feel  their  immeasurable 
superiority  in  many  important  respects  to  all 
we  call  modern;  and  I  would  fain  think  that 
there  are  many  even  among  my  younger  readers 
who  can  now,  or  will  hereafter,  sympathise  with 
the  expression  of  my  ardent  admiration. 

"Greek — the  shrine  of  the  genius  of  the  old 
world;  as  universal  as  our  race,  as  individual  as 
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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

ourselves ;  of  infinite  flexibility,  or  indefatigable 
strength,  with  the  complication  and  the  distinct- 
ness of  Nature  herself;  to  which  nothing  was 
vulgar,  from  which  nothing  was  excluded ;  speak- 
ing to  the  ear  like  Italian,  speaking  to  the  mind 
like  English;  with  words  like  pictures,  with 
words  like  the  gossamer  films  of  the  summer ;  at 
once  the  variety  and  picturesqueness  of  Homer; 
the  gloom  and  the  intensity  of  ^schylus;  not 
compressed  to  the  closest  by  Thucydides,  nor 
fathomed  to  the  bottom  by  Plato ;  not  sounding 
with  all  its  thunders,  nor  lit  up  with  all  its 
ardours  even  under  the  Promethean  touch  of 
Demosthenes! 

"And  Latin — the  voice  of  empire  and  of  war, 
of  law  and  of  the  state,  inferior  to  its  half -parent 
and  rival  in  the  embodying  of  passion  and  in  the 
distinguishing  of  thought,  but  equal  to  it  in  sus- 
taining the  measured  march  of  history;  and 
superior  to  it  in  the  indignant  declamation  of 
moral  satire ;  stamped  with  the  mark  of  an  impe- 
rial and  despotising  republic;  rigid  in  its  con- 
struction, parsimonious  in  its  synonyms;  reluc- 
tantly yielding  to  the  flowery  yoke  of  Horace, 
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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

although  opening  glimpses  of  Greek-like  splen- 
dour in  the  occasional  inspirations  of  Lucretius ; 
proved  indeed,  to  the  uttermost,  by  Cicero,  and 
by  him  found  wanting ;  yet  majestic  in  its  bare- 
ness, impressive  in  its  conciseness;  the  true 
language  of  history,  instinct  with  the  spirit  of 
nations  and  not  with  the  passions  of  individuals ; 
breathing  the  maxims  of  the  world,  and  not  the 
tenets  of  the  schools ;  one  and  uniform  in  its  air 
and  spirit,  whether  touched  by  the  stern  and 
haughty  Sallust,  by  the  open  and  discursive 
Livy,  by  the  reserved  and  thoughtful  Tacitus. 

"These  inestimable  advantages,  which  no 
modern  skill  can  wholly  counterpoise,  are  known 
and  felt  by  the  scholar  alone.  He  has  not  failed, 
in  the  sweet  and  silent  studies  of  his  youth,  to 
drink  deep  at  those  sacred  fountains  of  all  that 
is  just  and  beautiful  in  human  language. 

"The  thoughts  and  the  words  of  the  master- 
spirits of  Greece  and  of  Rome,  are  inseparably 
blended  in  his  memory ;  a  sense  of  their  marvel- 
lous harmonies,  their  exquisite  fitness,  their 
consummate  polish,  has  sunk  for  ever  in  his 
heart,  and  thence  throws  out  light  and  f ragrancy 
1 60 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

upon  the  gloom  and  the  annoyance  of  his 
maturer  years.  No  avocations  of  professional 
labour  will  make  him  abandon  their  wholesome 
study;  in  the  midst  of  a  thousand  cares  he  will 
find  an  hour  to  recur  to  his  boyish  lessons — to 
reperuse  them  in  the  pleasurable  consciousness 
of  old  associations,  and  in  the  clearness  of  manly 
judgment,  and  to  apply  them  to  himself  and  to 
the  world  with  superior  profit. 

"The  more  extended  his  sphere  of  learning 
in  the  literature  of  modern  Europe,  the  more 
deeply,  though  the  more  wisely,  will  he  reverence 
that  of  classical  antiquity ;  and  in  declining  age, 
when  the  appetite  for  magazines  and  reviews, 
and  the  ten- times  repeated  trash  of  the  day, 
has  failed,  he  will  retire,  as  it  were,  within  a 
circle  of  school-fellow  friends,  and  end  his  secular 
studies  as  he  began  them,  with  his  Homer,  his 
,  Horace,  and  his  Shakespeare. " 

Ah,  what  an  echo,  Antony,  every  word  of 

this  beautiful  passage  finds  in  my  own  heart, 

only  saddened  with  the  poignant  regret  that 

the  necessary  business  and  occupation  of  the 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

passing  years  have  dulled  for  me  such  un- 
polished facility,  as  I  may  once  have  possessed, 
for  perusing  my  Homer  and  my  Horace! 

It  is,  indeed,  rare  in  these  days  to  find 
gentlemen  as  familiar  as  were  their  forebears 
with  Latin  and  Greek.  You,  Antony,  will 
probably  find  yourself  as  you  grow  up  in  like 
case  with  myself,  but  there  will  remain  for 
your  unending  instruction  and  delight  all  the 
glories  of  English  literature,  to  give  you  a  taste 
for  which  these  few.  letters  of  mine  are  written, 
plucking  only  a  single  flower  here  and  there 
from  the  most  wonderful  garden  in  the  world. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


162 


25 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Cardinal  Newman,  of  whom  I  shall  write 
to-day,  was  the  first  of  the  great  writers  born 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  he  lived  from 
1801  to  1890.  Besides  being  a  master  of 
English  prose  he  was  no  mean  poet ;  but  above 
all  else  he  was  a  man  of  immense  personal 
power,  which  was  strangely  associated  with  a 
manifest  saintliness  which  compelled  diffidence 
from  those  admitted  to  his  intimacy. 

I  have  described  him  as  I  knew  him  in  my 
Memories;1  and  now  will  quote  to  you  his 
utterance  on  music  and  its  effect  upon  the 
heart  of  man,  which  has  always  seemed  to  me 
too  precious  to  leave  buried  in  a  sermon : — 

"Let  us  take  an  instance,  of  an  outward  and 
earthly  form,  or  economy,  under  which  great 

1  Pp.  52-57- 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

wonders  unknown  seem  to  be  typified;  I  mean 
musical  sounds  as  they  are  exhibited  most  per- 
fectly in  instrumental  harmony. 

"There  are  seven  notes  in  the  scale;  make 
them  fourteen;  yet  what  a  slender  outfit  for  so 
vast  an  enterprise!  What  Science  brings  so 
much  out  of  so  little  ?  out  of  what  poor  elements 
does  some  great  master  in  it  create  his  new 
world ! 

"Shall  we  say  that  all  this  exuberant  inven- 
tiveness is  a  mere  ingenuity  or  trick  of  art,  like 
some  game  or  fashion  of  the  day,  without  reality, 
without  meaning?  We  may  do  so;  and  then, 
perhaps,  we  shall  also  account  theology  to  be  a 
matter  of  words ;  yet,  as  there  is  a  divinity  in  the 
theology  of  the  Church,  which  those  who  feel 
cannot  communicate,  so  is  there  also  in  the  won- 
derful creation  of  sublimity  and  beauty  of  which 
I  am  speaking.  To  many  men  the  very  names 
which  the  Science  employs  are  utterly  imcompre- 
hensible.  To  speak  of  an  idea  or  a  subject 
seems  to  be  fanciful  or  trifling,  to  speak  of  the 
views  which  it  opens  upon  us  to  be  childish 
extravagance;  yet  is  it  possible  that  that  inex- 
164 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

haustible  evolution  and  disposition  of  notes,  so 
rich  yet  so  simple,  so  intricate  yet  so  regulated, 
so  various  yet  so  majestic,  should  be  a  mere 
sound,  which  is  gone  and  perishes? 

"Can  it  be  that  those  mysterious  stirrings  of 
heart,  and  keen  emotions,  and  strange  yearnings 
after  we  know  not  what,  and  awful  impressions 
from  we  know  not  whence,  should  be  wrought 
in  us  by  what  is  unsubstantial,  and  comes  and 
goes,  and  begins  and  ends  in  itself  ?  It  is  not  so ; 
it  cannot  be.  No ;  they  have  escaped  from  some 
higher  sphere,  they  are  the  outpourings  of 
eternal  harmony  in  the  medium  of  created 
sound ;  they  are  echoes  from  our  home ;  they  are 
the  voice  of  angels  or  the  magnificat  of  Saints, 
or  the  living  laws  of  Divine  Governance,  or  the 
Divinic  attributes;  something  are  they  besides 
themselves,  which  we  cannot  compass,  which 
we  cannot  utter, — though  mortal  man,  and  he 
perhaps  not  otherwise  distinguished  above  his 
fellows,  has  the  gift  of  eliciting  them. " 

Of  quite  another  order  is  the  Cardinal's 
description  of  a  gentleman.  Here  there  is  no 
flight  of  poetical  imagination,  but  a  mani- 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

festation  of  felicitous  intuition  and  pene- 
trating insight  as  rare  as  it  is  convincing, 
and  the  generous  wide  vision  of  a  man  of 
the  world,  undimmed  by  the  faintest  trace 
of  prejudice : — 

"Hence  it  is  that  it  is  almost  a  definition  of  a 
gentleman  to  say  he  is  one  who  never  inflicts 
pain.  This  description  is  both  refined  and,  as 
far  as  it  goes,  accurate.  He  is  mainly  occupied 
in  merely  removing  the  obstacles  which  hinder 
the  free  and  unembarrassed  action  of  those 
about  him ;  and  he  concurs  with  their  movements 
rather  than  takes  the  initiative  himself.  His 
benefits  may  be  considered  as  parallel  to  what 
are  called  comforts  or  conveniences  in  arrange- 
ments of  a  personal  nature:  like  an  easy  chair 
or  a  good  fire,  which  do  their  part  in  dispelling 
cold  and  fatigue,  though  nature  provides  both 
means  of  rest  and  animal  heat  without  them. 

"The  true  gentleman  in  like  manner  carefully 

avoids  whatever  may  cause  a  jar  or  a  jolt  in  the 

minds  of  those  with  whom  he  is  cast ;  all  clashing 

of  opinion,  or  collision  of  feeling,  all  restraint,  or 

1 66 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

suspicion,  or  gloom,  or  resentment;  his  great 
concern  being  to  make  everyone  at  their  ease 
and  at  home.  He  has  his  eyes  on  all  his  company ; 
he  is  tender  towards  the  bashful,  gentle  towards 
the  distant,  and  merciful  towards  the  absurd; 
he  can  recollect  to  whom  he  is  speaking;  he 
guards  against  unseasonable  allusions,  or  topics 
which  may  irritate;  he  is  seldom  prominent  in 
conversation  and  never  wearisome. 

"He  makes  light  of  favours  while  he  does 
them,  and  seems  to  be  receiving  when  he  is 
conferring.  He  never  speaks  of  himself  except 
when  compelled,  never  defends  himself  by  a 
mere  retort ;  he  has  no  ears  for  slander  or  gossip, 
is  scrupulous  in  imputing  motives  to  those  who 
interfere  with  him,  and  interprets  everything 
for  the  best.  He  is  never  mean  or  little  in  his 
disputes,  never  takes  unfair  advantage,  never 
mistakes  personalities  or  sharp  sayings  for  argu- 
ments, or  insinuates  evil  which  he  dare  not  say 
out.  From  a  long-sighted  prudence  he  observes 
the  maxim  of  the  ancient  sage,  that  we  should 
ever  conduct  ourselves  towards  our  enemy  as  if 
he  were  one  day  to  be  our  friend.  He  has  too 
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much  sense  to  be  affronted  at  insults,  he  is  too 
well  employed  to  remember  injuries,  and  too 
indolent  to  bear  malice. 

"He  is  patient,  forbearing,  and  resigned,  on 
philosophical  principles;  he  submits  to  pain 
because  it  is  inevitable,  to  bereavement  because 
it  is  irreparable,  and  to  death  because  it  is  his 
destiny.  If  he  engages  in  controversy  of  any 
kind  his  disciplined  intellect  preserves  him  from 
the  blundering  discourtesy  of  better,  perhaps, 
but  less  educated  minds,  who,  like  blunt  wea- 
pons, tear  and  hack  instead  of  cutting  clean,  who 
mistake  the  point  in  argument,  waste  their 
strength  in  trifles,  misconceive  their  adversary, 
and  leave  the  question  more  involved  than  they 
find  it.  He  may  be  right  or  wrong  in  his 
opinion,  but  he  is  too  clear-headed  to  be  unjust, 
he  is  as  simple  as  he  is  forcible,  and  as  brief  as 
he  is  decisive. 

"Nowhere  shall  we  find  greater  candour, 
consideration,  indulgence;  he  throws  himself 
into  the  minds  of  his  opponents,  he  accounts 
for  their  mistakes.  He  knows  the  weakness  of 
human  reason  as  well  as  its  strength,  its  pro- 
168 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

vince,  and  its  limits.  If  he  be  an  unbeliever  he 
will  be  too  profound  and  large-minded  to 
ridicule  religion  or  to  act  against  it;  he  is  too 
wise  to  be  a  dogmatist  or  fanatic  in  his  infidelity. 
He  respects  piety  and  devotion ;  he  even  supports 
institutions  as  venerable,  beautiful,  or  useful,  to 
which  he  does  not  assent ;  he  honours  the  minis- 
ters of  religion,  and  it  contents  him  to  decline 
its  mysteries  without  assailing  or  denouncing 
them.  He  is  a  friend  of  religious  toleration,  and 
that,  not  only  because  his  philosophy  has  taught 
him  to  look  on  all  forms  of  faith  with  an  im- 
partial eye,  but  also  from  the  gentleness  and 
effeminacy  of  feeling  which  is  the  attendant  on 
civilisation. 

"Not  that  he  may  not  hold  a  religion  too,  in 
his  own  way,  even  when  he  is  not  a  Christian. 
In  that  case  his  religion  is  one  of  imagination 
and  sentiment;  it  is  the  embodiment  of  those 
ideas  of  the  sublime,  majestic,  and  beautiful, 
without  which  there  can  be  no  large  philosophy. 
Sometimes  he  acknowledges  the  Being  of  God, 
sometimes  he  invests  an  unknown  principle  or 
quality  with  the  attributes  of  perfection.  And 
169 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

this  deduction  of  his  reason,  or  creation  of  his 
fancy,  he  makes  the  occasion  of  such  excellent 
thoughts,  and  the  starting-point  of  so  varied 
and  systematic  a  teaching,  that  he  even  seems 
like  a  disciple  of  Christianity  itself.  From  the 
very  accuracy  and  steadiness  of  his  logical 
powers,  he  is  able  to  see  what  sentiments  are 
consistent  in  those  who  hold  any  religious 
doctrine  at  all,  and  he  appears  to  others  to  feel 
and  to  hold  a  whole  circle  of  theological  truths, 
which  exist  in  his  mind  no  otherwise  than  as  a 
number  of  deductions. 

"Such  are  the  lineaments  of  the  ethical  char- 
acter which  the  cultivated  intellect  will  form 
apart*  from  religious  principle. " 

Surely  this  is  a  wonderful  utterance  from  a 
Cardinal  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  full  of  urban- 
ity and  the  wisdom  of  the  world. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


170 


26 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  have  in  a  former  letter  quoted  a  short  but 
noble  passage  from  Lord  Macaulay  on  the 
great  Lord  Chatham. 

But  I  feel  that  the  writer  who  was  perhaps 
the  greatest  essayist  that  England  has  ever 
produced  must  not  in  these  letters  be  fobbed 
off  with  so  slight  a  notice  and  quotation. 

What  has  always  seemed  to  me  the  suprem- 
est  passage  that  flowed  from  his  wonderful 
pen  is  to  be  found  in  his  paper  on  Warren 
Hastings  which  appeared  originally  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review. 

His  description  in  that  essay  of  the  opening 
of  the  great  impeachment,  has  given  all  suc- 
ceeding generations  a  vision  of  one  of  the  most 
majestic  scenes  in  the  whole  history  of  man. 

"There  have  been  spectacles  more  dazzling  to 
the  eye,  more  gorgeous  with  jewellery  and  cloth 
171 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

of  gold,  more  attractive  to  grown-up  children, 
than  that  which  was  then  exhibited  at  West- 
minster; but,  perhaps,  there  never  was  a 
spectacle  so  well  calculated  to  strike  a  highly 
cultivated,  a  reflecting,  an  imaginative  mind. 
All  the  various  kinds  of  interest  which  belong  to 
the  near  and  to  the  distant,  to  the  present  and  to 
the  past,  were  collected  on  one  spot  and  in  one 
hour.  All  the  talents  and  all  the  accomplish- 
ments which  are  developed  by  liberty  and 
civilisation  were  now  displayed,  with  every 
advantage  that  could  be  derived  both  from  co- 
operation and  from  contrast.  Every  step  in  the 
proceedings  carried  the  mind  either  backward, 
through  many  troubled  centuries,  to  the  days 
when  the  foundations  of  our  constitution  were 
laid ;  or  far  away,  over  boundless  seas  and  deserts, 
to  dusky  nations  living  under  strange  stars, 
worshipping  strange  gods,  and  writing  strange 
characters  from  right  to  left.  The  High  Court 
of  Parliament  was  to  sit,  according  to  forms 
handed  down  from  the  days  of  the  Planta- 
genets,  on  an  Englishman  accused  of  exercising 
tyranny  over  the  lord  of  the  holy  city  of  Ben- 
172 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

ares,  and  over  the  ladies  of  the  princely  house  of 
Oude. 

"The  place  was  worthy  of  such  a  trial.  It 
was  the  great  hall  of  William  Rufus,  the  hall 
which  had  resounded  with  acclamations  at  the 
inauguration  of  thirty  kings,  the  hall  which 
had  witnessed  the  just  sentence  of  Bacon  and  the 
just  absolution  of  Somers,  the  hall  where  the 
eloquence  of  Strafford  had  for  a  moment  awed 
and  melted  a  victorious  party  inflamed  with 
just  resentment,  the  hall  where  Charles  had 
confronted  the  High  Court  of  Justice  with  the 
placid  courage  which  has  half  redeemed  his 
fame.  Neither  military  nor  civil  pomp  was 
wanting.  The  avenues  were  lined  with  grena- 
diers. The  streets  were  kept  clear  by  cavalry. 
The  peers,  robed  in  gold  and  ermine,  were 
marshalled  by  the  heralds  under  Garter  King-at- 
Arms.  The  judges  in  their  vestments  of  state 
attended  to  give  advice  on  points  of  law.  Near 
a  hundred  and  seventy  lords,  three-fourths  of 
the  Upper  House  as  the  Upper  House  then  was, 
walked  in  solemn  order  from  their  usual  place  of 
assembling  to  the  tribunal.  The  junior  Baron 
173 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

present  led  the  way,  George  Eliot,  Lord  Heath- 
field,  recently  ennobled  for  his  memorable 
defence  of  Gibraltar  against  the  fleets  and 
armies  of  France  and  Spain.  The  long  proces- 
sion was  closed  by  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Earl 
Marshal  of  the  realm,  by  the  great  dignitaries, 
and  by  the  brothers  and  sons  of  the  King.  Last 
of  all  came  the  Prince  of  Wales,  conspicuous 
by  his  fine  person  and  noble  bearing.  The  grey 
old  walls  were  hung  with  scarlet.  The  long 
galleries  were  crowded  by  an  audience  such  as 
has  rarely  excited  the  fears  or  the  emulation  of 
an  orator.  There  were  gathered  together,  from 
all  parts  of  a  great,  free,  enlightened,  and  pro- 
sperous empire,  grace  and  female  loveliness,  wit 
and  learning,  the  representatives  of  every 
science  and  of  every  art.  There  were  seated 
round  the  Queen  the  fair-haired  young  daughters 
of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  There  the  Am- 
bassadors of  great  Kings  and  Commonwealths 
gazed  with  admiration  on  a  spectacle  which  no 
other  country  in  the  world  could  present.  There 
Siddons,  in  the  prime  of  her  majestic  beauty, 
looked  with  emotion  on  a  scene  surpassing  all  the 
174 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

imitations  of  the  stage.  There  the  historian  of  the 
Roman  Empire  thought  of  the  days  when  Cicero 
pleaded  the  cause  of  Sicily  against  Verres,  and 
when,  before  a  senate  which  still  retained  some 
show  of  freedom,  Tacitus  thundered  against  the 
oppressor  of  Africa.  There  were  seen,  side  by 
side,  the  greatest  painter  and  the  greatest 
scholar  of  the  age.  The  spectacle  had  allured 
Reynolds  from  that  easel  which  has  preserved  to 
us  the  thoughtful  foreheads  of  so  many  writers 
and  statesmen,  rand  the  sweet  smiles  of  so 
many  noble  matrons.  It  had  induced  Parr  to 
suspend  his  labours  in  that  dark  and  profound 
mine  from  which  he  had  extracted  a  vast 
treasure  of  erudition,  a  treasure  too  often  buried 
in  the  earth,  too  often  paraded  with  injudicious 
and  inelegant  ostentation,  but  still  precious, 
massive,  and  splendid.  There  appeared  the 
voluptuous  charms  of  her  to  whom  the  heir  of 
the  throne  had  in  secret  plighted  his  faith. 
There  too  was  she,  the  beautiful  mother  of  a 
beautiful  race,  the  Saint  Cecilia,  whose  delicate 
features,  lighted  up  by  love  and  music,  art  has 
rescued  from  the  common  decay.  There  were 
175 


the  members  of  that  brilliant  society  which 
quoted,  criticised,  and  exchanged  repartees, 
under  the  rich  peacock  hangings  of  Mrs.  Monta- 
gue. And  there  the  ladies  whose  lips,  more 
persuasive  than  those  of  Fox  himself,  had  carried 
the  Westminster  election  against  palace  and 
treasury,  shone  round  Georgiana,  Duchess  of 
Devonshire. 

"The  Serjeants  made  proclamation.  Hast- 
ings advanced  to  the  bar,  and  bent  his  knee. 
The  culprit  was  indeed  not  unworthy  of  that 
great  presence.  He  had  ruled  an  extensive  and 
populous  country,  had  made  laws  and  treaties, 
had  sent  forth  armies,  had  set  up  and  pulled 
down  princes.  And  in  his  high  place  he  had  so 
borne  himself,  that  all  had  feared  him,  that  most 
had  loved  him,  and  that  hatred  itself  could  deny 
him  no  title  to  glory,  except  virtue.  He  looked 
like  a  great  man,  and  not  like  a  bad  man.  A 
person  small  and  emaciated,  yet  deriving  dig- 
nity from  a  carriage  which,  while  it  indicated 
deference  to  the  court,  indicated  also  habitual 
self-possession  and  self-respect,  a  high  and 
intellectual  forehead,  a  brow  pensive,  but  not 
176 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

gloomy,  a  mouth  of  inflexible  decision,  a  face 
pale  and  worn,  but  serene,  on  which  was  written, 
as  legibly  as  under  the  picture  in  the  council- 
chamber  at  Calcutta,  M ens  aqua  in  arduis;  such 
was  the  aspect  with  which  the  great  Proconsul 
presented  himself  to  his  judges." 

Such  a  scene  can  only  find  its  appropriate 
enactment  at  the  centre  of  a  great  empire  and 
amid  a  people  with  an  august  history  behind 
them,  conscious  of  present  magnificence  and 
confident  of  future  glory. 

We  are  now  far  into  the  second  century  since 
that  memorable  spectacle  filled  to  the  walls  the 
great  Hall  of  Westminster. 

What  was  an  oligarchy  permeated  by  a  fine 
spirit  of  liberty  and  adorned  by  the  sacred 
principle  of  personal  freedom,  has  been  super- 
seded by  a  socialistic  democracy  under  which 
personal  freedom  suffers  frequent  curtailments, 
and  liberty  is  severely  abridged  by  the  man- 
dates of  trade  unions,  the  prohibitions  of  urban 
potentates,  and  the  usurpations  of  medicine 
men. 

177 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

Under  these  cramping  and  crippling  depri- 
vations we  have  lost  the  collective  sense  of 
greatness  as  a  race  that  infused  every  partici- 
pator in  the  splendid  pageant  of  such  an  event 
as  the  Impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings.  One 
has  but  to  imagine  an  impeachment  to-day 
with  the  dominant  personages  in  it  chosen 
from  the  strike  leaders  and  labour  delegates  of 
the  proletariat,  assisted  by  promoted  railway 
porters  and  ennobled  grocers,  to  perceive  what 
a  distance,  and  down  what  a  declivity  we  have 
travelled  since  those  days  when  it  was  im- 
possible for  any  great  public  function  to  take 
place  without  its  becoming  naturally  and  with- 
out conscious  effort  the  occasion  for  a  mani- 
festation of  the  pomp,  circumstance,  and 
splendour  inseparable  from  the  solemn  acts  of 
a  great  people  performed  by  their  greatest 
men. 

But  I  am  one,  Antony,  who  look  forward 
with  steadfast  hope  and  belief  to  a  reaction 
from  our  present  vulgarity,  and  to  a  reascen- 
sion  of  England  to  a  greater  dignity,  honour, 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

and  nobleness  both  in  its  public  and  private 
life  than  is  observable  to-day. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


179 


27 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  have  not  in  my  letters  to  you  travelled 
beyond  our  own  islands  in  search  of  great 
English  prose,  but  I  propose  now  to  make  one 
divergence  from  this  rule  and  quote  a  very 
great  and  deservedly  far-famed  speech,  uttered 
on  a  memorable  occasion,  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
President  of  the  United  States. 

At  the  present  time,  I  think,  the  name  of 
Lincoln  lies  closer  to  the  hearts  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  than  that  of  any  other,  not  even 
excepting  Washington  and  Hamilton.  The 
latter,  though  they  established  American 
independence,  remained  in  a  personal  sense 
English  gentlemen  till  their  death.  Lincoln 
was  born  in  the  backwoods  in  rude  poverty, 
received  no  education  but  what  he  acquired  by 
his  own  unaided  efforts,  and  lived  and  died  a 

1 80 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

man  of  the  people,  the  ideal  type  of  native- 
born  American. 

He  rose  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest 
position  in  the  State,  borne  upwards  by  the 
simple  nobility  of  his  character,  by  the  stain- 
less purity  of  his  actions,  and  the  splendid 
motive  of  all  his  endeavours.  His  speeches 
and  writings  derive  their  power  and  distinction 
from  no  tricks  of  oratory,  felicity  of  diction,  or 
nimbleness  of  mind.  They  are  the  vocal 
results  of  the  beatings  of  his  great  heart. 

He  led  his  people  to  war  in  the  manner  of  a 
prophet  of  Israel;  with  an  awful  austerity, 
majestic,  invincible,  and  with  hand  uplifted  in 
sure  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles.  On  the 
field  of  Gettysburg,  where  was  waged  the  most 
tremendous  of  all  combats  of  the  war,  he 
came  to  dedicate  a  cemetery  to  the  innumer- 
able dead,  and  these  were  his  few  and  noble 
words: — 

' '  Fourscore-and-seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
181 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

"Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war, 
testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so 
conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure. 
We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war. 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field 
as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave 
their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is 
altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do 
this. 

' '  But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we 
cannot  consecrate,  we  canndt  hallow  this  ground. 
The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled 
here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to 
add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note  nor 
long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us, 
the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the 
unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for 
us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remain- 
ing before  us ;  that  from  these  honoured  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
182 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion ;  that 
we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not 
have  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under  God, 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that 
government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

Few  are  the  opportunities  in  the  history  of 
the  world  when  the  time,  the  place,  the  occa- 
sion, and  the  words  spoken,  have  combined  so 
poignantly  to  move  the  hearts  of  men. 

One  can  imagine  the  vast  concourse  standing 
awestruck  and  uncovered  before  the  solemn 
splendour  of  this  noble  dedication,  every 
phrase  of  which  will  remain  for  generations  a 
treasured  and  sacred  memory  in  countless 
thousands  of  homes  of  the  great  continent 
in  the  West. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


183 


28 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

The  nineteenth  century  witnessed  the  rise 
of  an  entirely  new  style  of  English  prose. 

The  ancient  and  universal  restraints  were 
swept  away,  the  decorous  stateliness  of  all  the 
buried  centuries  was  abandoned,  and  there 
arose  a  band  of  writers,  to  whom  De  Quincey 
and  Ruskin  were  the  leaders,  who  withdrew  all 
veils  from  their  emotions,  threw  away  all  the 
shackles  of  reserve,  and  poured  their  sobs  and 
ecstasies  upon  us,  in  soaring  periods  of  im- 
passioned prose,  glittering  with  decorative 
alliterations,  and  adorned  with  euphonious 
harmonies  of  vowel  sounds. 

This  flamboyant  style  seems  to  have  syn- 
chronised with  the  general  decline  of  reserve 
and  ceremony  in  English  life,  and  with  the  rise 
of  the  modern  familiar  intimacy  that  leaves 
no  privacy  even  to  our  thoughts.  Our  grand- 

184 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

fathers  would  have  hesitated  to  have  discussed 
at  the  dinner-table,  even  after  the  ladies  had 
withdrawn,  what  is  now  set  down  for  free 
debate  at  ladies'  clubs,  and  canvassed  in  the 
correct  columns  of  the  Guardian. 

This  new  habit  of  mind  and  speech  has 
affected  our  literature  deeply  and  diversely. 
In  the  hands  of  the  really  great  masters  such  as 
Carlyle,  Froude,  and  Ruskin,  the  intimate 
revelations  of  the  throbbings  of  their  hearts, 
and  the  direct  and  untrammelled  appeal  of 
their  inmost  souls  crying  in  the  market-place, 
take  forcible  possession  of  our  affections,  and 
bring  them  into  closer  touch  with  each  one  of 
us  than  was  ever  possible  with  the  older 
restrained  writers. 

But  with  lesser  men  the  modern  decay  of 
restraint  and  the  licence  of  intimacy  and  of  the 
emotions  have  led  to  widespread  vulgarity, 
and  a  contemptible  deluge  of  hyperbole,  and 
superlative,  and  redundancy;  and  although 
the  disappearance  of  reserve  in  modern  writing 
may  tend  to  reduce  all  but  the  production  of 

185 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

the  great  to  a  depressing  state  of  vulgarity,  it 
nevertheless,  in  the  master's  hand,  has  un- 
locked for  us  the  doors  of  an  Aladdin's  palace! 
But  even  if  the  restraint  of  the  ancient  writers 
has  disappeared  from  the  prose  of  our  own 
times,  all  great  writing  of  necessity  must 
now  and  always  possess  the  quality  of  simplic- 
ity; and  even  Ruskin,  who  saw  the  world  of 
nature  about  him  with  the  eyes  of  a  visionary, 
and  wrote  of  what  he  saw  as  one  so  inspired 
as  to  be  already  half  in  Paradise,  yet  clothed 
his  glorious  outpourings  in  a  raiment  of  perfect 
simplicity. 

"This,  I  believe,"  he  wrote,  "is  the  ordinance 
of  the  firmament ;  and  it  seems  to  me  that  in  the 
midst  of  the  material  nearness  of  these  heavens, 
God  means  us  to  acknowledge  His  own  immedi- 
ate Presence  as  visiting,  judging,  and  blessing  us. 
'The  earth  shook,  the  heavens  also  dropped,  at 
the  presence  of  God.'  'He  doth  set  His  bow  in 
the  clouds,'  and  thus  renews,  in  the  sound  of 
every  drooping  swathe  of  rain,  His  promise  of 
everlasting  love.  'In  them  hath  He  set  a 
1 86 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

tabernacle  for  the  sun,'  whose  burning  ball, 
which,  without  the  firmament,  would  be  seen 
but  as  an  intolerable  and  scorching  circle  in  the 
blackness  of  vacuity,  is  by  that  firmament 
surrounded  with  gorgeous  service,  and  tempered 
by  mediatorial  ministries;  by  the  firmament  of 
clouds  the  golden  pavement  is  spread  for  his 
chariot  wheels  at  morning ;  by  the  firmament  of 
clouds  the  temple  is  built  for  his  presence  to  fill 
with  light  at  noon;  by  the  firmament  of  clouds 
the  purple  veil  is  closed  at  evening  round  the 
sanctuary  of  his  rest ;  by  the  mists  of  the  firma- 
ment his  implacable  light  is  divided  and  its  sepa- 
rated fierceness  appeased  into  the  soft  blue  that 
fills  the  depth  of  distance  with  its  bloom,  and  the 
flush  with  which  the  mountains  burn  as  they 
drink  the  overflowing  of  the  dayspring.  And 
in  this  tabernacling  of  the  unendurable  sun  with 
men,  through  the  shadows  of  the  firmament, 
God  would  seem  to  set  forth  the  stooping  of 
His  own  majesty  to  men,  upon  the  throne  of  the 
firmament. 

"As  the  Creator  of  all  the  worlds,  and   the 
Inhabiter  of  eternity,  we  cannot  behold  Him ;  but 
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as  the  Judge  of  the  earth  and  the  Preserver  of 
men  those  heavens  are  indeed  His  dwelling- 
place.  'Swear  not,  neither  by  heaven,  for  it  is 
God's  throne;  nor  by  earth,  for  it  is  His  foot- 
stool.' 

' '  And  all  those  passings  to  and  fro  of  fruitful 
showers  and  grateful  shade,  and  all  those  visions 
of  silver  palaces  built  about  the  horizon,  and 
voices  of  moaning  winds  and  threatening  thun- 
ders, and  glories  of  coloured  robe  and  cloven  ray, 
are  but  to  deepen  in  our  hearts  the  acceptance 
and  distinctness  and  dearness  of  the  simple 
words,  'Our  Father,  Which  art  in  heaven ! ' ' 

The  description  of  the  first  approach  to 
Venice  before  the  days  of  railways  will  always 
be  cherished  by  those  who  admire  Ruskin's 
work  as  one  of  his  most  characteristic  and 
memorable  utterances : — 

' '  In  the  olden  days  of  travelling,  now  to  return 
no  more,  in  which  distance  could  not  be  van- 
quished without  toil,  but  in  which  that  toil  was 
rewarded  partly  by  the  power  of  that  deliberate 
survey  of  the  countries  through  which  the  jour- 
188 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

ney  lay,  and  partly  by  the  happiness  of  the 
evening  hours,  when,  from  the  top  of  the  last 
hill  he  had  surmounted,  the  traveller  beheld  the 
quiet  village,  where  he  was  to  rest,  scattered 
among  the  meadows  beside  its  valley  stream ;  or, 
from  the  long -hoped-for  turn  in  the  dusty 
perspective  of  the  causeway,  see,  for  the  first 
time,  the  towers  of  some  famed  city,  faint  in  the 
rays  of  sunset — hours  of  peaceful  and  thoughtful 
pleasure,  for  which  the  rush  of  the  arrival  in  the 
railway  station  is  perhaps  not  always,  or  to  all 
men,  an  equivalent — in  those  days,  I  say,  when 
there  was  something  more  to  be  anticipated  and 
remembered  in  the  first  aspect  of  each  suc- 
cessive halting  place  than  a  new  arrangement  of 
glass  roofing  and  iron  girder — there  were  few 
moments  of  which  the  recollection  was  more 
fondly  cherished  by  the  traveller  than  that 
which,  as  I  endeavoured  to  describe  in  the  close 
of  the  last  chapter,  brought  him  within  sight  of 
Venice,  as  his  gondola  shot  into  the  open  lagoon 
from  the  canal  of  Mestre. 

' '  Not  but  that  the  aspect  of  the  city  itself  was 
generally  the  source  of  some  slight  disappoint- 
189 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

ment,  for,  seen  in  this  direction,  its  buildings  are 
far  less  characteristic  than  those  of  the  other 
great  towns  of  Italy;  but  this  inferiority  was 
partly  disguised  by  distance,  and  more  than 
atoned  for  by  the  strange  rising  of  its  walls  and 
towers  out  of  the  rn^dst,  as  it  seemed,  of  the  deep 
sea;  for  it  was  impossible  that  the  mind  or  the 
eye  could  at  once  comprehend  the  shallowness  of 
the  vast  sheet  of  water  which  stretched  away  in 
leagues  of  rippling  lustre  to  the  north  and  south, 
or  trace  the  narrow  line  of  islets  bounding  it  to 
the  east.  The  salt  breeze,  the  white  moaning 
sea-birds,  the  masses  of  black  weed  separating 
and  disappearing  gradually  in  knots  of  heaving 
shoal  under  the  advance  of  the  steady  tide,  all 
proclaimed  it  to  be  indeed  the  ocean  on  whose 
bosom  the  great  city  rested  so  calmly ;  not  such 
blue,  soft,  lake-like  ocean  as  bathes  the  Nea- 
politan promontories,  or  sleeps  beneath  the 
marble  rocks  of  Genoa,  but  a  sea  with  the  bleak 
power  of  northern  waves,  yet  subdued  into  a 
strange  spacious  rest,  and  changed  from  its 
angry  pallor  into  a  field  of  burnished  gold  as  the 
sun  declined  behind  the  belfry  tower  of  the 
190 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

lonely  island  church,  fitly  named  'St  George  of 
the  Sea- weed.' 

"As  the  boat  drew  nearer  to  the  city,  the  coast 
which  the  traveller  had  just  left  sank  behind 
him  into  one  long,  low,  sad-coloured  line,  tufted 
irregularly  with  brushwood  and  willows ;  but,  at 
what  seemed  its  northern  extremity,  the  hills  of 
Argua  rose  in  a  dark  cluster  of  purple  pyramids, 
balanced  on  the  bright  mirage  of  the  lagoon ;  two 
or  three  smooth  surges  of  inferior  hill  extended 
themselves  about  their  roots,  and  beyond  these, 
beginning  with  the  craggy  peaks  above  Vicenza, 
the  chain  of  the  Alps  girded  the  whole  horizon  to 
the  north — a  wall  of  jagged  blue,  here  and  there 
showing  through  its  clefts  a  wilderness  of  misty 
precipices,  fading  far  back  into  the  recesses  of 
Cadore,  and  itself  rising  and  breaking  away  east- 
ward, where  the  sun  struck  opposite  upon  its 
snow  into  mighty  fragments  of  peaked  light, 
standing  up  behind  the  barred  clouds  of  evening 
one  after  another,  countless,  the  crown  of  the 
Adrian  Sea,  until  the  eye  turned  back  from 
pursuing  them,  to  rest  upon  the  nearer  burning 
of  the  campaniles  of  Murano,  and  on  the  great 
191 


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city,  where  it  magnified  itself  along  the  waves,  as 
the  quick,  silent  pacing  of  the  gondola  drew 
nearer  and  nearer. 

"And  at  last  when  its  walls  were  reached,  and 
the  outmost  of  its  untrodden  streets  was  entered, 
not  through  towered  gate  or  guarded  rampart, 
but  as  a  deep  inlet  between  two  rocks  of  coral  in 
the  Indian  Sea;  when  first  upon  the  traveller's 
sight  opened  the  long  ranges  of  columned  pal- 
aces— each  with  its  black  boat  moored  at  the 
portal,  each  with  its  image  cast  down  beneath 
its  feet  upon  that  green  pavement  which  every 
breeze  broke  into  new  fantasies  of  rich  tessel- 
lation when  first,  at  the  extremity  of  the  bright 
vista,  the  shadowy  Rialto  threw  its  colossal 
curve  slowly  forth  from  behind  the  palace  of  the 
Camerlemghi,  that  strange  curve,  so  delicate,  so 
adamantine,  strong  as  a  mountain  cavern,  grace- 
ful as  a  bow  just  bent;  when  first,  before  its 
moonlike  circumference  was  all  risen,  the  gondo- 
lier's cry,  'Ah!  Stali!'  struck  sharp  upon  the 
ear,  and  the  prow  turned  aside  under  the  mighty 
cornices  that  half  met  over  the  narrow  canal, 
where  the  plash  of  the  water  followed  close  and 
192 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

loud,  ringing  along  the  marble  by  the  boat's  side ; 
and  when  at  last  the  boat  darted  forth  upon  the 
breadth  of  silver  sea,  across  which  the  front  of 
the  Ducal  palace,  flushed  with  its  sanguine 
veins,  looks  to  the  snowy  dome  of  Our  Lady  of 
Salvation,  it  was  no  marvel  that  the  mind  should 
be  so  deeply  entranced  by  the  visionary  charm 
of  a  scene  so  beautiful  and  so  strange  as  to  fjorget 
the  darker  truths  of  its  history  and  its  being. 

' '  Well  might  it  seem  that  such  a  city  had  owed 
her  existence  rather  to  the  rod  of  the  enchanter, 
than  the  fear  of  the  fugitive;  that  the  waters 
which  encircled  her  had  been  chosen  for  the 
mirror  of  her  state,  rather  than  the  shelter  of  her 
nakedness;  and  that  all  which  in  Nature  was 
wild  or  merciless — Time  and  Decay,  as  well  as 
the  waves  and  tempests — had  been  won  to 
adorn  her  instead  of  to  destroy,  and  might  still 
spare,  for  ages  to  come,  that  beauty  which 
seemed  to  have  fixed  for  its  throne  the  sands 
of  the  hour-glass  as  well  as  of  the  sea." 

It  is  now  many  years  since  I  first  saw  Venice 
rising  from  the  sea  on  a  September  morning  as 
I  sailed  towards  it  across  the  Adriatic  from 

13  193 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

Trieste ;  and  as  we  glided  closer  and  closer  its 
loveliness  was  slowly  and  exquisitely  unveiled 
under  the  slanting  beams  of  the  early  sun. 

In  all  my  wanderings  over  two  hemispheres 
I  remember  no  vision  so  enchanting  and 
unsurpassable!  May  you  live  to  see  it, 
Antony,  before  the  vulgarities  of  modern  life 
have  totally  defaced  its  beauty. 

Your  loving  old 
G.  P. 


194 


29 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Born  in  Devon  at  the  same  time — within  a 
year — as  Ruskin,  James  Anthony  Froude 
wrote  prose  that  displays  the  same  sanguine 
and  poetical  characteristics.  His  historical 
writings  have,  I  believe,  been  somewhat  dis- 
credited of  late  years  owing  to  the  permission 
he  is  alleged  to  have  given  himself  to  warp  his 
account  of  events  in  order  to  buttress  some 
prejudice  or  contention  of  his  own. 

But  if  we  set  him  aside  as  an  accurate  au- 
thority, we  can  at  once  restore  him  to  our 
regard  as  a  lord  of  visionary  language: — 

"Beautiful  is  old  age,  beautiful  as  the  slow- 
dropping,  mellow  autumn  of  a  rich,  glorious 
summer.  In  the  old  man  Nature  has  fulfilled 
her  work;  she  leads  him  with  her  blessings;  she 
fills  him  with  the  fruits  of  a  well-spent  life ;  and, 
195 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

surrounded  by  his  children  and  his  children's 
children,  she  rocks  him  softly  away  to  the  grave, 
to  which  he  is  followed  with  blessings.  God 
forbid  we  should  not  call  it  beautiful.  It  is 
beautiful,  but  not  the  most  beautiful. 

' '  There  is  another  life,  hard,  rough,  and  thorny, 
trodden  with  bleeding  feet  and  aching  brow ;  the 
life  of  which  the  cross  is  the  symbol;  a  battle 
which  no  peace  follows,  this  side  of  the  grave; 
which  the  grave  gapes  to  finish  before  the  victory 
is  won ;  and — strange  that  it  should  be  so — this 
is  the  highest  life  of  man. 

"Look  back  along  the  great  names  of  history; 
there  is  none  whose  life  has  been  other  than  this. 
They  to  whom  it  has  been  given  to  do  the  really 
highest  work  in  this  earth,  whoever  they  are, 
Jew  or  Gentile,  Pagan  or  Christian,  warriors, 
legislators,  philosophers,  priests,  poets,  kings, 
slaves — one  and  all,  their  fate  has  been  the  same 
— the  same  bitter  cup  has  been  given  them  to 
drink." 

Another  passage  of  deep  and  melancholy 
beauty  cannot  be  omitted  from  this  volume. 
It  records  in  language  of  haunting  loveliness 

196 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

the  passing  away  of  feudalism  and  chivalry 
and  of  a  thousand  years  of  the  pageantry  of 
faith:— 

"The  great  trading  companies  were  not  in- 
stituted for  selfish  purposes,  but  to  ensure  the 
consumer  of  manufactured  articles  that  what  he 
purchased  was  properly  made  and  of  a  reason- 
able price.  They  determined  prices,  fixed  wages, 
and  arranged  the  rules  of  apprenticeship.  But 
in  time  the  companies  lost  their  healthy  vitality, 
and,  with  other  relics  of  feudalism,  were  in  the 
reign  of  Elizabeth  hastening  away.  There  were 
no  longer  tradesmen  to  be  found  in  sufficient 
number  who  were  possessed  of  the  necessary 
probity ;  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  connect  such 
a  phenomenon  with  the  deep  melancholy  which, 
in  those  days,  settled  down  on  Elizabeth  herself. 

"For  indeed  a  change  was  coming  upon  the 
world,  the  meaning  and  direction  of  which  even 
is  still  hidden  from  us — a  change  from  era  to 
era.  The  paths  trodden  by  the  footsteps  of  ages 
were  broken  up;  old  things  were  passing  away, 
and  the  faith  and  life  of  ten  centuries  were  dis- 
197 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

solving  like  a  dream.  Chivalry  was  dying;  the 
abbey  and  the  castle  were  soon  together  to 
crumble  into  ruins;  and  all  the  forms,  desires, 
beliefs,  convictions  of  the  old  world  were  passing 
away,  never  to  return.  A  new  continent  had 
risen  up  beyond  the  western  sea.  The  floor  of 
heaven,  inlaid  with  stars,  had  sunk  back  into  an 
infinite  abyss  of  immeasurable  space;  and  the 
firm  earth  itself,  unfixed  from  its  foundations, 
was  seen  to  be  but  a  small  atom  in  the  awful 
vastness  of  the  Universe. 

"In  the  fabric  of  habit  which  they  had  so 
laboriously  built  for  themselves,  mankind  was  to 
remain  no  longer.  And  now  it  is  all  gone — like 
an  unsubstantial  pageant,  faded;  and  between 
us  and  the  old  English  there  lies  a  gulf  of  mys- 
tery which  the  prose  of  the  historian  will  never 
adequately  bridge.  They  cannot  come  to  us, 
and  our  imagination  can  but  feebly  penetrate  to 
them.  Only  among  the  aisles  of  the  cathedrals, 
only  as  we  gaze  upon  their  silent  figures  sleep- 
ing on  their  tombs,  some  faint  conceptions  float 
before  us  of  what  these  men  were  when  they  were 
alive ;  and  perhaps  in  the  sound  of  church  bells, 
198 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

that  peculiar  creation  of  mediaeval  age,  which 
falls  upon  the  ear  like  the  echo  of  a  vanished 
world." 

The  sound  of  church  bells,  being  entirely  the 
creation  of  man,  forms  perhaps  amore  touching 
link  with  the  past  for  us  than  the  eternal  sounds 
of  nature.  Yet  the  everlasting  wash  of  the 
waves  of  the  sea  forms  a  bond  between  us  and 
the  unplumbed  depths  of  time,  as  they 

"Begin  and  cease,  and  then  again  begin 
With  tremulous  cadence  slow,  and  bring, 
The  eternal  note  of  sadness  in. 
Sophocles  long  ago 

Heard  it  on  the  JEgean,  and  it  brought 
Into  his  mind  the  turbid  ebb  and  flow 
Of  human  misery." 

So  wrote  Matthew  Arnold.  Then  there  is 
the  sound  of  wind  in  the  trees,  and  the  voice  of 
falling  waters  and  rippling  streams  which  must 
have  fallen  upon  the  ears  of  our  remotest  fore- 
runners as  they  do  upon  our  own.  These 
eternal  sounds  about  us  take  no  note  of  our 

199 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

brief  coming  and  going,  and  will  be  the  same 
when  you  and  I,  Antony,  and  all  the  millions 
that  come  after  us  in  the  world  have  returned 
to  dust. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


200 


30 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Though  I  do  not  myself  rank  Matthew  Ar- 
nold among  the  great  prose  writers  of  England, 
yet,  like  all  true  poets — and  he  indeed  was  one 
of  them, — he  wrote  excellent  English  prose. 

It  is  true  that  he  turned  to  poetry  to  express 
his  finest  emotions  and  thoughts,  and  he  him- 
self alludes  to  his  prose  writings  thus :  "  I  am  a 
mere  solitary  wanderer  in  search  of  the  light, 
and  I  talk  an  artless,  unstudied,  everyday 
familiar  language.  But,  after  all,  this  is  the 
language  of  the  mass  of  the  world." 

The  chief  note  of  all  his  teaching  was  ur- 
banity. "The  pursuit  of  perfection,"  he  said, 
1 '  is  the  pursuit  of  sweetness  and  light . "  ' '  Cul- 
ture hates  hatred :  culture  has  one  great  passion 
— the  passion  for  sweetness  and  light." 

This  teaching,  no  doubt,  leads  to  fields  of 
pleasantness  and  charm,  and  not  at  all  to  the 

2OI 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

high  places  of  self-sacrifice,  or  the  austere 
peaks  of  martyrdom.  Burning  indignation 
against  intolerable  things,  fierce  denunciation 
of  the  cruelties  and  abominations  of  the  world 
find  no  encouragement  or  sympathy  from  this 
serene,  detached,  and  therefore  somewhat 
ineffectual,  teaching. 

Sweetness  and  light  would  never  have  inter- 
fered with  the  slave  trade,  or  fiercely  fought 
beside  Plimsoll  for  the  load-line  on  the  sides  of 
ships. 

We  did  not  fight  the  Germans  under  the 
doctrine  of  sweetness  and  light. 

It  was  a  beautiful  and  edifying  adornment 
for  the  drawing-room  in  times  of  Victorian  self- 
satisfied  peace,  but  was  a  tinsel  armour  for  the 
battle  of  life,  and  entirely  futile  as  a  sword  for 
combating  wrong. 

I  am  not  sure  that  Matthew  Arnold  would 
not  have  called  those  who  wrathfully  slash 
about  them  at  abominable  evils,  Philistines. 

After  all,  the  great  men  of  action  and  the 
great  writers  of  the  world  have  been  capable  of 

202 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

harbouring  great  enthusiasms  and  deep  indig- 
nations in  their  hearts ;  and  these  emotions  do 
not  emerge  from  a  "passion  for  sweetness  and 
light." 

A  better  doctrine,  Antony,  is,  I  think,  to  try 
to  push  things  along  cheerfully  but  strenu- 
ously in  the  right  direction  wherever  and 
whenever  you  can. 

As  a  writer  I  think  Matthew  Arnold's  best 
passage  is  to  be  found  in  the  Preface  to  his 
Essays  in  Criticism : — 

"Oxford.  Beautiful  city!  So  venerable,  so 
lovely,  so  unravaged  by  the  fierce  intellectual 
life  of  our  century,  so  serene ! 

"There  are  our  young  barbarians,  all  at  play! 

"And  yet  steeped  in  sentiment  as  she  lies, 
spreading  her  gardens  to  the  moonlight,  and 
whispering  from  her  towers  the  last  enchant- 
ments of  the  Middle  Age,  who  will  deny  that 
Oxford,  by  her  ineffable  charm,  keeps  ever  call- 
ing us  to  the  true  goal  of  all  of  us,  to  the  ideal, 
to  perfection, — to  beauty,  in  a  word,  which  is 
only  truth  seen  from  another  side? — nearer 
203 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

perhaps  than  all  the  science  of  Tubingen.  Ador- 
able dreamer,  whose  heart  has  been  so  romantic ! 
who  hast  given  thyself  so  prodigally,  given  thy- 
self to  sides  and  heroes  not  mine,  only  never  to 
the  Philistines!  home  of  lost  causes,  and  for- 
saken beliefs,  and  unpopular  names,  and  im- 
possible loyalties!  .  .  .  Apparitions  of  a  day, 
what  is  our  puny  warfare  against  the  Phil- 
istines, compared  with  the  warfare  which  this 
Queen  of  Romance  has  been  waging  against  them 
for  centuries,  and  will  wage  after  we  are  gone? " 

As  a  man  and  a  companion, '  if  you  expected 
nothing  but  delightful  humour,  brilliant  dis- 
course, and  urbane  outlook  upon  everything, 
few  could  rival  his  personal  charm;  but  he 
would  never  really  join  you  in  a  last  ditch  to 
defend  the  right,  or  actually  charge  with  you 
against  the  wrong,  although  in  his  poem  "The 
Last  Word,"  while  not  participating  himself  in 
such  strenuous  doings,  he  seems  to  yield  a 
reluctant  admiration  to  him  who  does  so 
charge,  and  who  leaves  his ' '  body  by  the  wall. ' ' 

1  See  my  Memories,  pp.  46-52  and  55. 
204 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

Much  has  happened  since  Matthew  Arnold 
poured  his  scorn  upon  the  unregenerate  Phil- 
istines; but  let  us  remember,  Antony,  that 
thousands  and  thousands  of  these  contemned 
neglecters  of  sweetness  and  light  stood  un- 
flinchingly and  died  upon  the  plains  of  France 
that  our  country  and  its  freedom  should 
survive. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


205 


MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Like  the  author  of  the  Peninsular  War,  Sir 
William  Butler  was  great  both  as  a  soldier  and 
as  a  writer.  His  autobiography  sparkles  with 
humour,  irony,  and  felicitous  diction;  but  it 
was  in  his  Life  of  Gordon  of  Khartoum  that  he 
rose  to  his  full  stature  as  a  contributor  to  the 
glory  of  English  prose. 

The  spell  of  Gordon  seems  to  have,  as  it 
were,  transfigured  all  who  approached  him, 
and  raised  them  out  of  themselves.  One  man 
alone,  of  all  those  whose  lives  touched  his,  has 
shown  that  his  own  pinched  and  narrow 
mediocrity  was  proof  against  the  radiance  of 
Gordon's  spirit,  and  has  feebly  attempted  to 
belittle  the  soldier  saint  for  his  own  justifica- 
tion. But  he  has  failed  even  to  project  a  spot 
upon  the  sun  of  Gordon's  fame,  and  he  is 
already  forgotten,  while  the  great  soldier's 

206 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

name  will  endure  in  the  hearts  of  his  country- 
men till  England  and  its  people  fail. 

If  Sir  William  Butler's  final  noble  periods, 
which  I  here  reproduce,  do  not  deeply  move 
him  who  reads  them,  then  must  that  reader 
have  a  heart  of  stone : — 

"Thus  fell  in  dark  hour  of  defeat  a  man  as 
unselfish  as  Sidney,  of  courage  dauntless  as 
Wolfe,  of  honour  stainless  as  Outram,  of  sym- 
pathy wide-reaching  as  Drummond,  of  honesty 
straightforward  as  Napier,  of  faith  as  steadfast 
as  More.  Doubtful  indeed  is  it  if  anywhere  in 
the  past  we  shall  find  figure  of  knight  or  soldier 
to  equal  him,  for  sometimes  it  is  the  sword  of 
death  that  gives  to  life  its  real  knighthood,  and 
too  often  the  soldier's  end  is  unworthy  of  his 
knightly  life;  but  with  Gordon  the  harmony  of 
life  and  death  was  complete,  and  the  closing 
scenes  seem  to  move  to  their  fulfilment  in  solemn 
hush,  as  though  an  unseen  power  watched  over 
the  sequence  of  their  sorrow. 

"Not  by  the  blind  hazard  of  chance  was  this 
great  tragedy  consummated ;  not  by  the  discord 
207 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

of  men  or  from  the  vague  opposition  of  physical 
obstacle,  by  fault  of  route  or  length  of  delay, 
was  help  denied  to  him.  The  picture  of  a  won- 
derful life  had  to  be  made  perfect  by  heroic 
death.  The  moral  had  to  be  cut  deep,  and 
written  red,  and  hung  high,  so  that  its  lesson 
could  be  seen  by  all  men  above  strife  and  doubt 
and  discord.  Nay,  the  very  setting  of  the  final 
scenes  has  to  be  wrought  out  in  such  contrast  of 
colour  that  the  dullest  eye  shall  be  able  to  read 
the  meaning  of  it  all.  For  many  a  year  back  this 
soldier's  life  has  been  a  protest  against  our  most 
cherished  teaching.  Faith  is  weakness,  we  have 
said.  He  will  show  us  it  is  strength.  Reward  is 
the  right  of  service.  Publicity  is  true  fame.  Let 
us  go  into  action  with  a  newspaper  correspondent 
riding  at  our  elbow,  or  sitting  in  the  cabin  of  the 
ship,  has  been  our  practice.  He  has  told  us  that 
the  race  should  be  for  honour,  not  for  'honours,' 
that  we  should  'give  away  our  medal,'  and  that 
courage  and  humility,  mercy  and  strength, 
should  march  hand  in  hand  together.  For  many 
a  year  we  have  had  no  room  for  him  in  our 
councils.  Our  armies  knew  him  not ;  and  it  was 
208 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

only  in  semi-savage  lands  and  in  the  service  of 
remote  empires  he  could  find  scope  for  his  genius. 
Now  our  councils  will  be  shamed  in  his  service, 
and  our  armies  will  find  no  footing  in  our  efforts 
to  reach  him.  We  have  said  that  the  Providence 
of  God  was  only  a  calculation  of  chances ;  now  for 
eleven  months  the  amazing  spectacle  will  be 
presented  to  the  world  of  this  solitary  soldier 
standing  at  bay,  within  thirty  days'  travel  of  the 
centre  of  Empire,  while  the  most  powerful  king- 
dom on  the  earth — the  nation  whose  wealth  is 
as  the  sands  of  the  sea,  whose  boast  is  that  the 
sun  never  sets  upon  its  dominions — is  unable  to 
reach  him — saving  he  does  not  want — but  is 
unable  to  reach  him  even  with  one  message  of 
regret  for  past  forgetfulness. 

' '  No ;  there  is  something  more  in  all  this  than 
mistake  of  Executive,  or  strife  of  party,  or  error 
of  Cabinet ,  or  fault  of  men  can  explain .  The  pur- 
pose of  this  life  that  has  been,  the  lesson  of  this 
death  that  must  be ,  is  vaster  and  deeper  than  these 
things.  The  decrees  of  God  are  as  fixed  to-day 
as  they  were  two  thousand  years  ago,  but  they 
can  be  worked  to  their  conclusion  by  the  weak- 

14  209 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

ness  of  men  as  well  as  by  the  strength  of  angels. 

"There  is  a  grey  frontlet  of  rock  far  away  in 
Strathspey — once  the  Gordons'  home — whose 
name  in  bygone  times  gave  a  rallying-call  to  a 
kindred  clan.  The  scattered  firs  and  wind-swept 
heather  on  the  lone  summit  of  Craig  Ellachie 
once  whispered  in  Highland  clansmen's  ear  the 
warcry,  'Stand  fast!  Craig  Ellachie.'  Many  a 
year  has  gone  by  since  kith  of  Charles  Gordon 
last  heard  from  Highland  hilltop  the  signal  of 
battle,  but  never  in  Celtic  hero's  long  record  of 
honour  has  such  answer  been  sent  back  to  High- 
land or  to  Lowland  as  when  this  great  heart 
stopped  its  beating,  and  lay  'steadfast  unto 
death'  in  the  dawn  at  Khartoum.  The  winds 
that  moan  through  the  pine  trees  on  Craig  Ella- 
chie have  far-off  meanings  in  their  voices.  Per- 
haps on  that  dark  January  night  there  came  a 
breath  from  heaven  to  whisper  to  the  old  High- 
land rock,  'He  stood  fast !  Craig  Ellachie.' 

"The  dust  of  Gordon  is  not  laid  in  English 

earth,  nor  does  even  the  ocean,  which  has  been 

named  Britannia's  realm,  hold  in  'its  vast  and 

wandering  grave'  the  bones  of  her  latest  hero. 

210 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

Somewhere,  far  out  in  the  immense  desert  whose 
sands  so  often  gave  him  rest  in  life,  or  by  the 
shores  of  that  river  which  was  the  scene  of  so 
much  of  his  labour,  his  ashes  now  add  their  wind- 
swept atoms  to  the  mighty  waste  of  the  Soudan. 
But  if  England,  still  true  to  the  longline  of  her  mar- 
tyrs to  duty ,  keep  his  memory  precious  in  her  heart 
— making  of  him  no  false  idol  or  brazen  image  of 
glory,  but  holding  him  as  he  was,  the  mirror  and 
measure  of  true  knighthood — then  better  than  in 
effigy  or  epitaph  will  his  life  be  written,  and  his 
nameless  tomb  become  a  citadel  to  his  nation." 

The  statue  of  Gordon  stands  in  noble  reverie 
in  Trafalgar  Square,  at  the  centre  of  the  Em- 
pire for  whose  honour  he  died. 

In  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  he  lies  in  effigy,  and 
engraven  upon  the  cenotaph  can  be  seen  the 
most  splendid  epitaph  in  the  world. 

His  true  greatness  has  been  recorded  by 
Sir  William  Butler  in  resounding  and  glorious 
English;  and  his  last  great  act  of  stainless 
nobility  has  received  a  deathless  tribute. 
Your  loving  old,  G.  P. 

211 


32 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  have  now  come  down,  at  last,  to  a  great 
writer  of  English  prose  who  is  still  with  us. 

Lord  Morley  at  the  present  day  is,  I  think, 
universally  recognised  as  the  greatest  living 
man  of  letters  in  the  British  Empire;  he  has 
crowned  a  long  record  of  distinguished  literary 
achievement  with  his  Life  of  Gladstone,  which 
has  taken  its  place  among  the  noblest  bio- 
graphies of  the  world,  where  it  is  destined  to 
remain  into  the  far  future  acclaimed  as  a 
masterpiece.  In  his  description  of  the  veteran 
statesman  launching  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons his  great  project  of  Home  Rule  for 
Ireland,  he  has  surprised  himself  out  of  his  own 
reserve,  and  painted  the  scene  for  succeeding 
generations  in  colours  that  can  never  die : — 

"No  such  scene  has  ever  been  beheld  in  the 
House  of  Commons.     Members  came  down  at 

212 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

break  of  day  to  secure  their  places ;  before  noon 
every  seat  was  marked,  and  crowded  benches 
were  even  arrayed  on  the  floor  of  the  House  from 
the  Mace  to  the  Bar.  Princes,  ambassadors, 
great  peers,  high  prelates,  thronged  the  lobbies. 
The  fame  of  the  orator,  the  boldness  of  his  ex- 
ploit, curiosity  as  to  the  plan,  poignant  anxiety 
as  to  the  party  result,  wonder  whether  a  wizard 
had  at  last  actually  arisen  with  a  spell  for  casting 
out  the  baleful  spirits  that  had  for  so  many  ages 
made  Ireland  our  torment  and  our  dishonour — 
all  these  things  brought  together  such  an  as- 
semblage as  no  minister  before  had  ever  ad- 
dressed within  those  world-renowned  walls. 

"The  Parliament  was  new.  Many  of  its 
members  had  fought  a  hard  battle  for  their 
seats,  and  trusted  they  were  safe  in  the  haven  for 
half  a  dozen  good  years  to  come.  Those  who 
were  moved  by  professional  ambition,  those 
whose  object  was  social  advancement,  those 
who  thought  only  of  upright  public  service,  the 
keen  party  of  men,  the  men  who  aspire  to  office, 
the  men  with  a  past  and  the  men  who  looked  for 
a  future,  all  alike  found  themselves  adrift  on 
213 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

dark  and  troubled  waters.  The  secrets  of  the 
Bill  had  been  well  kept.  To-day  the  disquieted 
host  were  first  to  learn  what  was  the  great  pro- 
ject to  which  they  would  have  to  say  that  Aye 
or  No  on  which  for  them  and  for  the  State  so 
much  would  hang. 

"Of  the  chief  comrades  or  rivals  of  the  min- 
ister's own  generation,  the  strong  administrators, 
the  eager  and  accomplished  debaters,  the  saga- 
cious leaders,  the  only  survivor  now  comparable 
to  him,  in  eloquence  or  in  influence,  was  Mr. 
Bright.  That  illustrious  man  seldom  came  into 
the  House  in  those  distracted  days ;  and  on  this 
memorable  occasion  his  stern  and  noble  head 
was  to  be  seen  in  dim  obscurity. 

"Various  as  were  the  emotions  in  other  re- 
gions of  the  House,  in  one  quarter  rejoicing  was 
unmixed.  There,  at  least,  was  no  doubt  and  no 
misgiving.  There,  pallid  and  tranquil,  sat  the 
Irish  leader,  whose  hard  insight,  whose  patience, 
energy,  and  spirit  of  command,  had  achieved 
this  astounding  result,  and  done  that  which  he 
had  vowed  to  his  countrymen  that  he  would 
assuredly  be  able  to  do.  On  the  benches  round 
214 


The  Glory  of  Englisn  Prose 

him  genial  excitement  rose  almost  to  tumult. 
Well  it  might.  For  the  first  time  since  the  Union 
the  Irish  case  was  at  last  to  be  pressed  in  all  its 
force  and  strength,  in  every  aspect  of  policy  and 
of  conscience  by  the  most  powerful  Englishman 
then  alive. 

"More  striking  than  the  audience  was  the 
man ;  more  striking  than  the  multitude  of  eager 
onlookers  from  the  shore  was  the  rescuer,  with 
deliberate  valour  facing  the  floods  ready  to  wash 
him  down ;  the  veteran  Ulysses,  who,  after  more 
than  half  a  century  of  combat,  service,  toil, 
thought  it  not  too  late  to  try  a  further  'work  of 
noble  note.'  In  the  hands  of  such  a  master  of 
the  instrument  the  theme  might  easily  have  lent 
itself  to  one  of  those  displays  of  exalted  passion 
which  the  House  had  marvelled  at  in  more  than 
one  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  speeches  on  the  Turkish 
question,  or  heard  with  religious  reverence  in  his 
speech  on  the  Affirmation  Bill  in  1883. 

"What  the  occasion  now  required  was  that 
passion  should  burn  low,  and  reasoned  persua- 
sion hold  up  the  guiding  lamp.  An  elaborate 
scheme  was  to  be  unfolded,  an  unfamiliar  policy 
215 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

to  be  explained  and  vindicated.  Of  that  best 
kind  of  eloquence  which  dispenses  with  declama- 
tion this  was  a  fine  and  sustained  example. 
There  was  a  deep,  rapid,  steady,  onflowing 
volume  of  arguments,  exposition,  exhortation. 
Every  hard  or  bitter  stroke  was  avoided.  Now 
and  again  a  fervid  note  thrilled  the  ear  and  lifted 
all  hearts.  But  political  oratory  is  action,  not 
words — action,  character,  will,  conviction,  pur- 
pose, personality.  As  this  eager  muster  of  men 
underwent  the  enchantment  of  periods  exquisite 
in  their  balance  and  modulation,  the  compulsion 
of  his  flashing  glance  and  animated  gesture, 
what  stirred  and  commanded  them  was  the 
recollection  of  national  service,  the  thought  of 
the  speaker's  mastering  purpose,  his  unflagging 
resolution  and  strenuous  will,  his  strength  of 
thew  and  sinew  well  tried  in  long  years  of  re- 
sounding war,  his  unquenched  conviction  that 
the  just  cause  can  never  fail.  Few  are  the  heroic 
moments  in  our  parliamentary  politics,  but  this 
was  one." 

I  will  not  trench  upon  politics  in  these  let- 
ters; but  I  may  hazard  the  belief  that  could 

216 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

those  who  rejected  this  noble  effort,  by  the 
greatest  statesman  of  the  age,  to  assuage  the 
everlasting  Irish  conflict,  have  looked  into  the 
future,  few  of  them  but  would  have  supported 
it  with  relief  and  thanksgiving. 

It  is  generally  perhaps  a  blessing  that  the 
curtain  that  covers  the  future  is  impenetrable; 
but  in  this  case,  had  it  been  lifted  for  us  to  gaze 
upon  the  appalling  future,  Gladstone's  last 
effort  for  the  peace  of  his  country  would  surely 
not  have  been  permitted  to  miscarry. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


217 


33 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

Two  other  living  writers  I  will  now  com- 
mend to  you,  and  then  I  shall  have  done. 

The  parents  of  Mr.  Belloc,  with  a  happy 
prevision,  anticipated  by  some  decades  the 
entente  cordiale,  and  their  brilliant  son  felici- 
tously manifests  in  his  own  person  many  of 
the  admirable  qualities  of  both  races.  In  Eng- 
land he  is  reported  to  be  forcefully  French,  and 
it  may  be  surmised  that  when  in  France  he  is 
engagingly  British .  Fortunately  for  our  litera- 
ture, it  is  in  the  language  of  his  mother  that 
he  has  found  his  expression.  Many  are  the 
beautiful  utterances  scattered  through  his 
charming  works:  two  of  the  most  picturesque 
deal  with  the  greatness  of  France ;  the  subject 
of  one  is  the  Ancient  Monarchy,  and  of  the 
other  the  Great  Napoleon : — 

218 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

"So  perished  the  French  Monarchy.  Its  dim 
origins  stretched  out  and  lost  themselves  in 
Rome ;  it  had  already  learnt  to  speak  and  recog- 
nised its  own  nature  when  the  vaults  of  the 
Thermae  echoed  heavily  to  the  slow  footsteps  of 
the  Merovingian  kings. 

"Look  up  the  vast  valley  of  dead  men 
crowned,  and  you  may  see  the  gigantic  figure  of 
Charlemagne,  his  brows  level  and  his  long  white 
beard  tangled  like  an  undergrowth,  having  in  his 
left  hand  the  globe,  and  in  his  right  the  hilt  of  an 
unconquerable  sword.  There  also  are  the  short 
strong  horsemen  of  the  Robertian  House,  half 
hidden  by  their  leather  shields,  and  their  sons 
before  them  growing  in  vestment  and  majesty 
and  taking  on  the  pomp  of  the  Middle  Ages; 
Louis  VII.,  all  covered  with  iron;  Philip,  the 
Conqueror;  Louis  IX.,  who  alone  is  surrounded 
with  light :  they  stand  in  a  widening,  intermin- 
able procession,  this  great  crowd  of  kings;  they 
loose  their  armour,  they  take  their  ermine  on, 
they  are  accompanied  by  their  captains  and 
their  marshals;  at  last,  in  their  attitude  and  in 
their  magnificence  they  sum  up  in  themselves 
219 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

the  pride  and  the  achievement  of  the  French 
nation. 

"But  Time  has  dissipated  what  it  could  not 
tarnish,  and  the  process  of  a  thousand  years  has 
turned  these  mighty  figures  into  unsubstantial 
things.  You  may  see  them  in  the  grey  end  of 
darkness,  like  a  pageant,  all  standing  still. 
You  look  again,  but  with  the  growing  light,  and 
with  the  wind  that  rises  before  morning,  they 
have  disappeared." 


"There  is  a  legend  among  the  peasants  in 
Russia  of  a  certain  sombre,  mounted  figure,  un- 
real, only  an  outline  and  a  cloud,  that  passed 
away  to  Asia,  to  the  east  and  to  the  north.  They 
saw  him  move  along  their  snows,  through  the 
long  mysterious  twilights  of  the  northern  au- 
tumn, in  silence,  with  the  head  bent  and  the 
reins  in  the  left  hand  loose,  following  some  endur- 
ing purpose,  reaching  towards  an  ancient  soli^ 
tude  and  repose.  They  say  it  was  Napoleon. 

"After  him  there  trailed  for  days  the  shadows 
of  the  soldiery,  vague  mists  bearing  faintly  the 
220 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

forms  of  companies  of  men.  It  was  as  though 
the  cannon  smoke  at  Waterloo,  borne  on  the 
light  west  wind  of  that  June  day,  had  received 
the  spirits  of  twenty  years  of  combat,  and  had 
drifted  farther  and  farther  during  the  fall  of  the 
year  over  the  endless  plains. 

"But  there  was  no  voice  and  no  order.  The 
terrible  tramp  of  the  Guard,  and  the  sound  that 
Heine  loved,  the  dance  of  the  French  drums,  was 
extinguished ;  there  was  no  echo  of  their  songs,  for 
the  army  was  of  ghosts  and  was  defeated.  They 
passed  in  the  silence  which  we  can  never  pierce, 
and  somewhere  remote  from  men  they  sleep  in  bi- 
vouac round  the  most  splendid  of  human  swords . ' ' 

Time  and  circumstances  have  changed  our 
ancient  enemies  into  our  honoured  friends,  and 
the  race  that  fought  against  us  at  Waterloo  has 
cemented  its  friendship  towards  us  with  its 
blood;  and  as  we  look  back  over  the  century 
that  divides  us  from  Waterloo  we  can  now  with 
Mr.  Belloc  salute  the  sombre  figure  of  the 
defeated  conqueror. 

Your  loving  old  G.  P. 


34 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  will  now  quote  to  you  one  other  master  of 
splendid  English. 

Not  every  temporal  sovereign  of  these 
realms  has  deserved  a  throne  among  the  kings 
of  literature.  James  the  First  was  a  poet  of 
some  merit ;  Charles  the  First  wrote  and  spoke 
with  a  fine  distinction ;  Queen  Victoria's  letters 
to  her  subjects  were  models  of  dignified  and 
kindly  simplicity;  but  to  King  George  the 
Fifth  by  the  grace  of  God  it  has  been  reserved 
to  give  utterance  to  what  I  believe  to  be  the 
most  noble  and  uplifting  address  ever  delivered 
by  a  king  to  his  people. 

From  the  day  of  his  accession  King  George 
has  been  confronted  with  trials  and  troubles 
enough  to  daunt  the  stoutest  heart,  and  none 
of  us  can  plumb  the  depth  of  anguish  that  must 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

have  been  his  through  the  awful  years  of  the 
Great  War.  He  has  been  tried  and  proved  in 
the  fierce  fires  of  adversity,  and  has  emerged 
ennobled  by  pain,  and  dowered  by  sorrow  with 
a  gift  of  expression  that  has  placed  him  among 
the  masters  of  the  glory  of  English  prose. 

On  the  1 3th  day  of  May  1922  he  concluded  a 
tour  of  the  cemeteries  in  France  at  Terlinch- 
thun,  where  there  stands  on  the  cliffs  over- 
looking the  Channel  a  monument  to  Napoleon 
and  his  Grand  Army,  and  around  it  now  lie  the 
innumerable  English  dead. 

Earlier  in  his  pilgrimage  Marshal  Foch  and 
Lord  Haig  had  in  his  presence  clasped  hands, 
and  the  King  with  a  fine  gesture  had  placed  his 
own  right  hand  upon  their  clasped  ones  and 
said,  "Amis  toujours!"  We  are  told  that, 
"going  up  to  the  Cross  of  Sacrifice,  the  King 
looked  out  over  the  closely  marshalled  graves 
to  the  sea,  and  back  towards  the  woods  and 
fields  of  the  Canche  Valley  where  Montreuil 
stands,  and  seemed  reluctant  to  leave." 

At  last  he  turned,  and,  standing  before  the 
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great  Cross  of  Sacrifice,  he  spoke  from  his 
heart  words  that  those  of  us,  Antony,  who  love 
our  country  and  the  glory  of  its  language  will 
cherish  while  we  live: — 

"For  the  past  few  days  I  have  been  on  a 
solemn  pilgrimage  in  honour  of  a  people  who  died 
for  all  free  men. 

"At  the  close  of  that  pilgrimage,  on  which  I 
followed  ways  already  marked  by  many  foot- 
steps of  love  and  pride  and  grief,  I  should  like  to 
send  a  message  to  all  who  have  lost  those  dear 
to  them  in  the  Great  War,  and  in  this  the  Queen 
joins  me  to-day,  amidst  these  surroundings  so 
wonderfully  typical  of  that  single-hearted  as- 
sembly of  nations  and  of  races  which  form  our 
Empire.  For  here,  in  their  last  quarters,  lie 
sons  of  every  portion  of  that  Empire,  across,  as 
it  were,  the  threshold  of  the  Mother  Island  which 
they  guarded,  that  Freedom  might  be  saved  in 
the  uttermost  ends  of  the  earth. 

' '  For  this,  a  generation  of  our  manhood  offered 

itself  without  question,  and  almost  without  the 

need  of  a  summons.     Those  proofs  of  virtue, 

which  we  honour  here  to-day,  are  to  be  found 

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The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

throughout  the  world  and  its  waters — since  we 
can  truly  say  that  the  whole  circuit  of  the  earth 
is  girdled  with  the  graves  of  our  dead.  Beyond 
the  stately  cemeteries  of  France,  across  Italy, 
through  Eastern  Europe  in  well-nigh  unbroken 
chain  they  stretch,  passing  over  the  holy  Mount 
of  Olives  itself  to  the  furthest  shores  of  the  In- 
dian and  Pacific  Oceans — from  Zeebrugge  to 
Coronel,  from  Dunkirk  to  the  hidden  wilder- 
nesses of  East  Africa. 

"But  in  this  fair  land  of  France,  which  sus- 
tained the  utmost  fury  of  the  long  strife,  our 
brothers  are  numbered,  alas!  by  hundreds  of 
thousands. 

' '  They  lie  in  the  keeping  of  a  tried  and  gener- 
ous friend,  a  resolute  and  chivalrous  comrade-in- 
arms,  who  with  ready  and  quick  sympathy  has 
set  aside  for  ever  the  soil  in  which  they  sleep, 
so  that  we  ourselves  and  our  descendants  may 
for  all  time  reverently  tend  and  preserve  their 
resting-places. 

"And  here,  at  Terlinchthun,  the  shadow  of  his 
monument  falling  almost  across  their  graves, 
the  greatest  of  French  soldiers — of  all  soldiers— 

is  225 


Letters  to  my  Grandson 

stands  guard  over  them.  And  this  is  just,  for 
side  by  side  with  the  descendants  of  his  incom- 
parable armies  they  defended  his  land  in  defend- 
ing their  own. 

"Never  before  in  history  have  a  people  thus 
dedicated  and  maintained  individual  memorials 
to  their  fallen,  and,  in  the  course  of  my  pilgrim- 
age, I  have  many  times  asked  myself  whether 
there  can  be  more  potent  advocates  of  peace 
upon  earth  through  the  years  to  come  than  this 
massed  multitude  of  silent  witnesses  to  the 
desolation  of  war.  And  I  feel  that,  so  long  as 
we  have  faith  in  God's  purposes,  we  cannot  but 
believe  that  the  existence  of  these  visible  me- 
morials will  eventually  serve  to  draw  all  peoples 
together  in  sanity  and  self-control,  even  as  it 
has  already  set  the  relations  between  our  Em- 
pire and  our  Allies  on  the  deep-rooted  bases  of  a 
common  heroism  and  a  common  agony. 

"Standing  beneath  this  Cross  of  Sacrifice, 
facing  the  great  Stone  of  Remembrance,  and 
compassed  by  these  sternly  simple  headstones, 
we  remember,  and  must  charge  our  children  to 
remember,  that  as  our  dead  were  equal  in  sacri- 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

fice,  so  are  they  equal  in  honour,  for  the  greatest 
and  the  least  of  them  have  proved  that  sacrifice 
and  honour  are  no  vain  things,  but  truths  by 
which  the  world  lives. 

4 '  Many  of  the  cemeteries  I  have  visited  in  the 
remoter  and  still  desolate  districts  of  this  sorely 
stricken  land,  where  it  has  not  yet  been  possible 
to  replace  the  wooden  crosses  by  headstones, 
have  been  made  into  beautiful  gardens  which  are 
lovingly  cared  for  by  comrades  of  the  war. 

' '  I  rejoice  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  see  these 
in  the  spring,  when  the  returning  pulse  of  the 
year  tells  of  unbroken  life  that  goes  forward  in 
the  face  of  apparent  loss  and  wreckage;  and  I 
fervently  pray  that,  both  as  nations  and  individ- 
uals, we  may  so  order  our  lives  after  the  ideals 
for  which  our  brethren  died  that  we  may  be  able 
to  meet  their  gallant  souls  once  more,  humbly 
but  unashamed." 

Hard  indeed  must  it  be  for  any  Englishman 
whose  heart  is  quick  within  his  bosom  not  to 
feel  it  beat  faster  with  thanksgiving  and  pride 
as  he  reads  the  flawless  periods  of  this  glorious 
speech. 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

As  the  final  word  of  consolation,  sanctifica- 
tion,  and  benediction,  closing  the  awful  agony 
of  the  greatest  of  all  wars,  preserve,  Antony, 
this  magnificent  threnody  in  your  memory 
imperishable. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


228 


35 

MY  DEAR  ANTONY, 

I  have  come  now  to  the  end  of  my  citations 
for  the  present.  My  object,  Antony,  has  been 
to  rouse  in  your  heart,  if  I  can,  a  love,  admira- 
tion, and  reverence  for  the  wonders  to  be  found 
in  the  treasure-house  of  English  prose 
literature. 

I  have  only  opened  a  little  door  here  and 
there,  so  that  you  can  peep  in  and  see  the 
visions  of  splendour  within. 

Some  day  perhaps,  when  you  have  explored 
for  yourself,  you  may  feel  surprised  that  in 
these  letters  I  have  quoted  nothing  from  Sir 
John  Eliot,  or  Addison,  or  Scott,  or  Thackeray, 
or  Charles  Lamb,  or  De  Quincey,  or  Hazlitt,  or 
other  kings  and  princes  of  style  innumerable. 
Many,  many  writers  whom  I  have  not  quoted 
in  these  letters  have  adorned  everything  they 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

touched,  but  do  not  seem  to  me  to  reach  the 
snow-line  or  rise  into  great  and  moving  elo- 
quence. Charles  Lamb,  for  example,  never 
descends  from  his  equable  and  altogether 
pleasing  level,  far  above  the  plain  of  the  com- 
monplace, but  neither  does  he  reach  up  to  the 
lofty  altitudes  of  the  lonely  peaks;  and  if  I 
began  to  quote  from  him,  I  see  no  obstacle  to 
my  quoting  his  entire  works !  And  of  Addison, 
Johnson  wrote,  "His  page  is  always  luminous, 
but  never  blazes  in  unexpected  splendour"; 
and  he  adds,  "Whoever  wishes  to  attain  an 
English  style,  familiar  but  not  coarse,  and 
elegant  but  not  ostentatious,  must  give  his 
days  and  nights  to  the  volumes  of  Addi- 


son." 


In  selecting  such  passages  as  I  have  in  these 
letters  I  have  necessarily  followed  my  own 
taste,  and  taste — as  I  said  when  I  first  began 
writing  to  you — is  illusive.  I  could  do  no  more 
than  cite  that  which  makes  my  own  heart  beat 
faster  from  a  compelling  sense  of  its  nobility 
and  beauty. 

230 


The  Glory  of  English  Prose 

When  I  was  young,  Antony,  I  lived  long  in 
my  father's  house  among  his  twelve  thousand 
books,  with  his  scholarly  mind  as  my  compan- 
ion, and  his  exact  memory  as  my  guide;  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  those 
days  I  have  lived  in  the  more  modest  library 
of  my  own  collecting,  and  have  long  learnt  how 
much  fine  literature  there  is  that  I  have  never 
read,  and  now  can  never  read.  But,  Antony, 
you  may  not  find,  in  these  crowded  days,  even 
so  much  time  for  reading,  or  so  much  repose 
for  study  as  I  have  found,  and  therefore  it  is 
that  I  have  offered  you  in  these  letters  the 
preferences  of  my  lifetime,  even  though  it 
has  been  the  lifetime  of  one  who  makes  no 
claim  to  be  a  literary  authority. 

As  you  look  back  at  those  from  whom  you 
have  sprung,  you  will  see  that  for  five  genera- 
tions they  have  been  men  of  letters — many 
distinguished,  and  one  world-famous;  and 
though  I  myself  am  but  a  puny  link  in  the 
chain,  yet  I  may  perhaps  afford  you  the  op- 
portunity of  hitching  your  wagon  by  and  by  to 

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Letters  to  my  Grandson 

the  star  that  has  for  so  long  ruled  the  destinies 
of  our  house. 

Farewell,  then,  dear  Antony;  and  if  "the 
dear  God  who  loveth  us"  listens  to  the  bene- 
dictions of  the  old  upon  their  children's  chil- 
dren, may  He  guide  and  bless  you  to  your  life's 
end. 

Your  loving  old 

G.  P. 


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